You Make Me Wanna
by The Dragon's Lady
Summary: CH 6 UP! Let me get this straight. You guys want to give Draco Malfoy a girl as a birthday present and you chose Ginny Weasley? and so the plan was hatched, the deal made and two unsuspecting ppls' lives were changed forever.
1. The plan

Hello everybody, before you guys start reading I have a couple of things to say. First of all, this is not my first fic ever but it _is_ my first D/G fic. Second, this story was inspired by a book called _Nobody's Baby But Mine_ written by one of my all time favorite authors Susan Elizabeth Phillips, but at the same time this fic is nothing like it, the two have very little in common. The plot is totally different and the only similarity is in the first chapter, this chapter. Third, we all know that the Harry Potter universe and characters like Draco Malfoy, Blaise Zabini (who is a girl in my fic), and Ginny Weasley don't belong to me (although I sure would like to own Draco Malfoy. Yummy!), they belong to J.K Rowling.

Well, that's pretty much it. Read it and then tell me what you think.

"Let me get this straight," said Blaise Zabini. "You guys want to give Draco Malfoy a _girl _as a birthday present."

The three slytherins, who were also her fellow 7th years, nodded simultaneously. It was a windy November evening and the four of them were in The Three Broomsticks having a round of drinks.

Blaise shook her head. "You guys have come up with some pretty crazy ideas before but this one takes home the trophy." She said.

"We figure that since he's turning eighteen, we should give him something extra special." Theodore Nott said.

Blaise raised a perfectly arched eyebrow that was several shades darker than her brassy blond hair.

"Something to make it one birthday he'll never forget." Vincent Crabbe added.

"Bull." Blaise said. While Draco Malfoy, popularly known as the ''Dragon'', was probably one of the best Quidditch players in all of Hogwarts and definitely the strongest sexiest heartthrob in all of Hogwarts, he was also demanding, temperamental, and generally impossible to get along with. And for some reason, he had been even worse this year. At first it had everybody confused, especially the other slytherins but slowly, bit by bit the reason behind his extra hostility was uncovered. It turned out that his girlfriend of five months (a personal record for both of them) who was also four years his senior had dumped him right before the start of the school year, and if that wasn't insulting enough she had dumped him for a muggle. With something as humiliating as that happening, Blaise could understand why he was acting so aggressive, but even with that justification, the idea of somebody going out of their way to do something for the Dragon just for the hell of it, was laughable. "You guys think if you get him somebody to help him forget about Daisy he'll ease up on you."

Nott shrugged. "Sonovabitch's been kicking so much ass lately, nobody can stand him." He growled.

"And since we're all on the Quidditch team with him and he's the captain, we're around him 247." Gregory Goyle said.

"So you see we really need this to work out." Crabbe finished.

Blaise leaned back in her seat and nodded thoughtfully. "Yeah, I know how you feel, but from what I've seen the Dragon already has more girlfriends than he knows what to do with."

"Draco doesn't give a damn about any of the girls that are hanging off his arm right now. I doubt he can even tell them apart." Nott said. "And besides rumor has it that he's not sleeping with any of them, that's how you know it's not serious."

"What?" Blaise said, surprised.

"Truth," Goyle said. "Turns out he's just using them for window dressing."

"Wow," Blaise said. "That's news to me. So there's been nobody in his life since Daisy?"

"Nope," Crabbe answered.

"Damn," Blaise said with an amused smirk. "I had no idea the Dragon could last that long without sex. I should go congratulate him."

"Not the smartest of choices," Nott said. "He'd probably hex you."

"I'd like to see him try." Blaise said, a hint of a challenge glinting in her cobalt blue eyes.

"Okay, maybe he wouldn't hex you like he would any body else," Nott said. "But then I'd think you'd have enough respect for him not to go rub it in his face."

"I suppose." Blaise said. Even though Draco and she weren't exactly what you'd call friends – the hardly ever talked, at least not without reason- but Blaise knew Draco was probably the only person in the whole school she could trust and would watch her back and vice versa. This was because they shared a special sort of bond since they came from the same backgrounds and usually understood each others' reasons for things they did when the rest of the world didn't and had a certain degree of respect for each other. "So what or should say who exactly are you looking for?"

"For starters she shouldn't remind him of Daisy." Crabbe said.

"That means she should be classy, not a brainless slut, like the girls he usually dates." Goyle said.

For somebody who had been often labeled as a brainless slut just because she was a blond, had a full bust and a tendency to dress in clothes that were a tad too revealing, Blaise took it as a personal insult. "So what are you looking for? Somebody that's a frigid prude and also a virgin? Maybe Granger would do." She said sarcastically.

"Not true and although the virgin part would be a nice touch, Granger would never do. Draco would rather die first, of course that's after he's killed us." Nott said with a thin smile. "We're looking for somebody different, classy and younger."

"Younger?" Blaise questioned.

"Younger than most of the girls or should I say women he dates." Nott explained. "Somebody more his own age."

"Oh yeah," Blaise smirked. "I can totally see the Dragon going for that."

The boys chose to ignore her comment even though they knew it was true. Draco had a bad habit of hooking up with women that were three to five years older than him, maybe even older. Blaise really couldn't say anything because she also preferred older men to the guys her own age. They were just too immature for her, she suspected that was also the reason why Draco didn't want to get serious about the girls in Hogwarts, most of them were airheads and those that weren't were geeks. It was extremely hard to find somebody in between.

"This is where you step in." Goyle said.

"Where I step in?" Blaise repeated. "Whoa, hold up. You want _me_ to be the one- uh uh- hell no- you must be out of your mind."

"Blaise, chill." Nott said. "It's not you. We just want your help in finding her."

"Oh right," Blaise said, slightly embarrassed that she had reacted so strongly. "So you guys want somebody from Hogwarts?"

"Yeah, but nobody under sixteen and nobody over eighteen," Crabbe said.

"Okay, that leaves us with about fifty girls to choose." Blaise said. "This is going to take a long time."

"Actually we've already chosen somebody." Nott said.

"You have?" Blaise asked, shocked. "Who?"

"Virginia Weasley." Goyle said promptly.

"_What_?" Blaise said vehemently.

"Virginia Weasley." Crabbe repeated. "Gryffindor 6th year, red hair, an amazing pair of legs."

"I know who she is, you dimwit." Blaise snapped. "I just can't believe you chose her."

"What do you mean?" Nott said. "I think she's perfect for Draco."

"Well," Blaise mused. "I can see why you'd think that, she's pretty, has great taste in clothes, definitely cares about how she looks but at the same time she's smart, can think for herself, has a temper that's even worse than the Dragon's and doesn't put up with any crap. He'd see her as a challenge and you know how he loves challenges."

"Exactly why we chose her." Nott said with a nod.

"But there's one problem." Blaise said.

The three guys gave her blank looks.

"She'd never agree." Blaise said simply.

"What are you talking about?" Nott demanded. "Any girl would jump at the chance to give herself to Draco."

"I wouldn't." Blaise said.

"You know what I mean." Nott said sharply.

Blaise sighed. "Look, yes any girl would jump at the chance, just not Weasley." She said. "She has way too much dignity and self-respect to do a thing like that and besides she hates him."

"Huh?" Goyle said, scratching his head.

"Yeah, I don't get it either," Blaise said with a shrug. "But that's Weasley for you. The only thing that will happen when you guys ask her is she'll send you straight to the hospital wing or if she's already in a bad mood to St. Mungo's, so take my advice, don't ask."

"Oh, we weren't planning to ask her," Crabbe said.

"What were you planning to do then? Drug her, and then kidnap her?" Blaise said half sarcastically, half seriously. She wouldn't put it past them to do something like that.

"Of course not," said Nott hurriedly. "He just meant that we weren't going to be the ones who were going to do the asking."

"Then pray tell who is?" Blaise asked even thought she was sure she knew.

Nott stared at her pointedly.

"Moi?" Blaise said in mock surprise. "Well, I suppose I should've seen it coming. Why else would you guys voluntarily give me all this valuable information?"

"You're the only slytherin that's on good terms with the gryffindors." Nott said. "And you are more or less - how should I put it? - acquaintances with Weasley."

"More or less." Blaise replied dryly.

"And you're really good at the matchmaking stuff." Goyle added.

"True, true. All of these are good points, but you still haven't given me a good reason to talk to her." Blaise said.

Nott sighed; he knew this had been coming.

"In other words," Blaise continued. "What's in it for me?"

Nott sighed again. "How about this? You get us Weasley and I'll-" he paused for effect.

"Yes?" Blaise said expectantly.

"I'll hook you up with Wood." Nott finished.

"Wood? Oliver Wood?" Blaise asked just to make sure.

"The one and only." Nott said with a smug look on his face. "As I recall, a couple of months ago you were willing to do anything in order to get with him."

"I still am." Blaise answered.

"Then you'll get us Weasley?" Crabbe asked anxiously.

"You guarantee I'll get Wood?" Blaise said, studying Nott.

"On my honor." He said.

"You have no honor." Blaise said with a smile. She paused. "You better not be messing with me." She said, still staring fixedly at the three slytherins in front of her.

"We're not." Goyle said. "We know better than to mess with you."

Blaise slowly nodded. "Then we have a deal." She said.

"Fine." Nott said. "You sure you can get us Weasley?"

"Count on it." Blaise said before making her exit.

And so the plan was hatched, and the deal made, changing the lives of two unsuspecting people forever.

So???????? What did you guys think? Did you hate it, like it, love it? Does it have potential? Please review and tell me what you think.


	2. Introducing Ms Virgina Weasley

A/N: hey everybody! Today is an extremely special day! Why, you may ask? Because it's my fifteenth birthday!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FATUMA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Sorry, couldn't help doing that. Its eight o'clock in the morning and everybody in my family is sleeping so I couldn't start singing at the top of my lungs like I usually do.

Ooh, ooh, ooh I almost forgot. A huge thanks to all the wonderful people who reviewed and made my day. I love you guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 27 reviews for one chapter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!

One more thing, The Harry Potter universe does not belong to me, it belongs to J.K Rowling, and I only own some minor characters like T.J and Dom who will be introduced in this chapter.

I forgot to mention in the last chapter but this fic is pretty much AU. I'll use cannon whenever I feel like it but I'm not going to try and stick to it, okay?

Teresa Jaqunetta Chickalini, better known as T.J, sat on the edge of her bed in the 6th year Gryffindor girls' room, staring at the stopwatch that was in her hand. Every few seconds she'd look towards the doorway as if she was expecting somebody to walk thru. Fifteen minutes later, an extremely pissed Ginny Weasley walked thru the door, shut it with a bang, and plopped down on her bed with a huge scowl on her face.

"Finally," T.J said, getting up to sit besides her. "What took you so long? You went way over the five minute mark."

"How much?" Ginny asked, wincing.

"Seventeen minutes and thirty-eight seconds." T.J informed her.

"Really?" Ginny said snatching the stopwatch from her hand. "Darn. Who knew Harry would be so hard to dump?"

"Judging from your mood, I'd say he was hard to dump." T.J said. "Are you having second thoughts?"

"No way." Ginny said, shaking her head. "This is Harry remember? I've wanted to dump him ever since I got involved with him."

"So what's the problem?" T.J asked.

"Oh nothing." Ginny said, avoiding her best friend's eyes.

"Don't you oh nothing me, Virginia Weasley." T.J said. "What's wrong?"

"Well, if you must know," Ginny said with a huge sigh. "I just got three detentions and a total of thirty points taken away." She said the last part in a rush.

"So?" T.J said with a shrug. "You're always getting in trouble. I'd be surprised if you didn't get into trouble."

"Gee, thanks." Ginny said wryly. "And you're supposed to be my best friend."

"Anyhoo, back to our original subject, did you dump Harry?" T.J asked.

"Duh." Ginny said. "Have I ever set out to do something and not do it?"

"Nope." T.J said. "That's one thing I really admire about you."

"Aww, thanks and this time I mean it." Ginny said.

"Your welcome, now tell me what happened." T.J said.

"Well, you know how I left about twenty minutes to go meet Harry in the common room to give him 'The Speech." Ginny said.

"Yeah," T.J said.

"I had it all worked out, I even timed myself. It would take me about a minute and twenty seconds to give him the 'talk' and hopefully before five minutes elapsed we would be kaput."

"I didn't ask you what you planned, Gin, I asked you what happened." T.J interrupted.

"I'm getting there. So I go down to the common room, he's sitting on one of the empty couches holding a little bouquet of flowers, even though I've told him a million times I don't like flowers. When he sees me, he gets up and gives the usual peck on the cheek. We sit down and he asks me what I had to tell him that was so important. I give him the speech and either the boy is really clueless when it comes to girls or he really thinks that there is something between us because ten minutes later we are still sitting in the same place and I'm still trying to dump him, except by now I'm really fed up so when he asks me one more time if I'll reconsider, I grab the vase off the nearest table and break it over his head and scream so the whole school can hear that it's over between us." Ginny paused to take a breath.

"You didn't." T.J gasped.

"I did." Ginny said. "And then-"

"You mean there's more?" T.J said. "I should've known better then to let you go down there by yourself."

"But of course." Ginny said, with a mischievous grin." Now, where was I? oh yeah, so then this guy makes this remark about redheads and their fiery tempers and by then I was in a really bad mood, so I took another vase and smashed it over his head."

"Ouch.' T.J said.

"And too late I notice that McGonagall was in the room the whole time and had just witnessed the entire thing."

"Aha," T.J said with an understanding nod. "That's how you got those three detentions."

"Unfortunately." Ginny said. "I got one for damaging school property and the other two for attacking students."

"But look at the bright side I've finally got rid of Harry." She added. "My family's going to be so disappointed though, especially Mum and Ron."

"I can just imagine how Ron is going to react when he hears the news." T.J grinned.

"The second he lays his eyes on me, he'll start yelling at me for dumping his best friend, and when's done with that, he'll get on my case for nearly killing him." Ginny said, also grinning. "I'm actually looking forward to it. It's always fun to get a rise out of Ron."

"Totally." T.J agreed.

"What I'm not looking forward to is Mum finding out." Ginny said, a grim look replacing her smile. "She won't say anything; just give me those sad, reproving looks she gets whenever she's disappointed in any of us. She really had her heart set on this relationship."

"That's why you started dating him, right?" T.J asked.

"Yeah," Ginny said. "I mean my family hardly approves of any of things I do or the guys I date and so when Harry asked me out and I saw how happy my mother was, I was like why not? Make her proud of me for once. I wasn't planning to dump him until Christmas but then my parents started acting like that my relationship with Harry was the real deal and I even overheard my mum telling my grandmother what a wonderful son-in-law Harry would make."

"That's nothing," T.J scoffed. "You should see my mother. Remember last year when I was dating Anthony Goldstein right before Easter?"

"How could I ever forget?" Ginny said. "You were so serious about him."

"I still would be if my mother hadn't interfered." T.J said, rolling her eyes. "And if I hadn't been stupid enough to invite him to my house over the holidays. But who was I to know that my mother would humiliate me like that? I was hoping since he was half Italian and all, she treat him more cordially than she'd treated my past boyfriends, and for once my wish came true, in fact they got along so well and she liked him so much, she had the nerve to tell me-and in his presence too- 'Teresa, you marry this boy he will give beautiful babies'" she said mimicking her mother's Italian accent.

"You're kidding." Ginny said, laughing.

"Nope." T.J said. "And as a result I got dumped two days later."

"You poor thing." Ginny said.

"Yeah," T.J said, sniffling. "I was so completely heartbroken; I couldn't get involved with anybody for weeks."

"Liar." Ginny said, throwing a pillow at her "You started going out with one of his friends two days later."

"Oh right, I forgot about that." T.J said innocently, causing Ginny to throw two more pillows at her.

"Okay, enough, enough." T.J laughed. "So who's going to be your next conquest?"

"Conquest?" Ginny repeated, looking offended. "You wound me with your choice of words."

"Cut the crap, Gin," T.J said. "You know what I mean."

"Yes I do and the answer is nobody." Ginny said. "I'm thru with guys."

"What?" T.J said. "You're kidding, right?"

"I'm serious." Ginny insisted. "I'm tired of the whole dating thing."

"I'm shocked speechless." T.J said, putting hand over her heart. "I really am."

"What's so shocking about that?" Ginny said with a shrug.

"Umm, everything!" T.J said." Not ever being able to shag or snog another guy? How can you live like that?"

"I don't mean forever. Maybe just until I get out of Hogwarts." Ginny said thoughtfully.

"Are you mad?" T.J practically shrieked. "That's the only reason I transferred to Hogwarts."

"And here I was thinking it was because you wanted a better education." Ginny said sardonically.

T.J just shook her head and looked at Ginny.

"While you stop staring at me like I've grown an extra head." Ginny said exasperatedly.

"Sorry Ginny, but I'm really surprised." T.J said. "Ginny umm-"

"Yeah?" Ginny said when she paused.

"Does it have anything to do with Davis?" T.J said hesitantly.

There was a long pause. "What makes you say that?" Ginny finally said.

T.J shrugged. "Cos we saw him yesterday in Hogsmeade and he was parading yet another girl and I saw how you looked at him. Then boom, you decide to dump Harry and make this announcement about being thru with guys. I'm not stupid."

"Well, can you blame me?" Ginny said angrily. "I gave him everything I had to give. My heart, my soul, my virginity and in the end he threw it all back in my face, and I'm supposed to act like it was no big deal?"

"Of course not Ginny and I know how much he hurt you and I'm really sorry about it." T.J said gently. "But don't you think a tiny fraction of this was your fault?"

"My fault?" Ginny repeated incredulously. "T.J, I-"

T.J held up her hand. "Just hear me out." She said. "Don't you think you expected a little too much of him? Roger Davis is a ladies man. Always was and always will be. You knew that he hardly stayed with anybody for too long yet you still agreed to date him. You knew he had a reputation for seducing girls yet you still slept with him and gave him your virginity. Maybe it was because when you were with him, he treated you like you were the only girl in his world but even that wasn't true and you knew it and yet you insisted to fall in love with him. Ginny, I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but while your breakup came as a shock to you, it was not a shock to anybody else."

"So it's my fault because I loved him?" Ginny said.

"Ginny, you were a fifteen year old girl what the hell did you know about love?" T.J asked.

"So it's my fault because I'm ignorant?" Ginny said.

"No!" T.J exploded. "Well, actually yes. But then were all ignorant when it comes to love. Ginny can you look me in the eye and tell me that you actually loved Davis? And when I say love I mean the 'this is it, this is the person I want to spend the rest of life with' kind of love."

"No, I can't." Ginny answered slowly.

"Right, because you really weren't in love with him. You're just a teenager Ginny give yourself a break. Nobody expects you to fall in love at this age. Your teenage years are there so you can mess around, be wild, try different things and most importantly have fun." T.J explained. "And nobody's going to say anything cos it's your teenage years."

Ginny sighed. "You know I hate it when you're right." she grumbled good-naturedly.

"That's my girl." T.J said giving her a hug. "So you're not giving up on guys?"

"I guess not." Ginny said.

"And you agree to be a little wilder, try new things and have fun?"

"Why not?" Ginny said with a shrug.

"Great!" T.J beamed. "Cos there's this party on Friday and I really think you're going to have a wonderful time. Maybe meet a couple of cute guys." She said raising her eyebrows suggestively. "And who knows what that will lead to?"

"T.J," Ginny said warningly.

"Just kidding! But all joking aside, this is the party of the century and there is no way we are going to miss it, right?" T.J said.

"Hmm," Ginny said. "Is it going to be in Hogwarts?"

"Yup." T.J answered. "Isn't that great? We don't have to sneak out."

"And everybody's going?" Ginny asked.

"Everybody who is invited." T.J said.

"Well, there you go. I'm positive that I didn't any invitation to a party on Friday so I can't go." Ginny said.

"Wrong. I got an invitation and I am allowed to bring along one person. Usually I'd find a guy just so I wouldn't be dateless but since you're single and I'm single I'm thinking we should go have a fun girl's night out kinda thing." T.J said speaking fast like she always did when she was excited.

"Sounds like fun," Ginny said, "but one more question. Who's throwing the party, and why?"

"Actually that's two questions." T.J corrected.

"Answer the question, T.J" Ginny said sternly. She was starting to feel a little suspicious.

"Does there have to be a question?" T.J whined. "Can't you just skip the questions and go to the party?"

"Now you're just confirming my suspicions." Ginny said. "Something is obviously going on or you wouldn't be avoiding the question."

"Okay, fine. Something is going on and if you knew you wouldn't like it but it's not something bad honestly." T.J said. "So now that you know that there is something but it's not a bad something, can we go?"

"No, we can't go because I still don't know what that something is!" Ginny said. "Now T.J, I will ask you one more time. What's this party for?"

"You know, that's not what you originally asked." T.J pointed out but seeing Ginny's stern look she sighed. "Some slytherins are throwing a party for Draco's eighteenth birthday on Friday."

"Malfoy?" Ginny said.

"Yeah," T.J replied.

"As in Draco Malfoy?" Ginny said.

"Well, I'm sure it's not his father." T.J said sarcastically.

"Just making sure. At least now I know why I wasn't invited. It's because the slytherins are throwing it and I'm a Weasley and I hate Malfoy." Ginny said. "And plus I have red hair." She added as an afterthought.

"Okay, the first three I get but the red hair thing is just way off." T.J said. "And like I said I have an invitation so you don't have to worry."

"No." Ginny said, folding her arms across her chest.

"No?" T.J said her face falling.

"Sorry, but there's no way I'm going to that bastard's birthday party." Ginny said.

"I know you don't like him-" T.J started.

"Correction, I hate him." Ginny said.

"Whatever. Just because you don't like him it doesn't mean we should pass up the chance to go to the coolest party ever." T.J said.

"I wouldn't be caught dead going to some party that Malfoy's going to be at." Ginny said. "Like I said T.J I'm sorry, but that's final."

"Fine." Said T.J quietly.

They were both silent for a minute.

"Ginny?" T.J said almost hesitantly. "Why do you hate him so much?"

Ginny sighed. She usually tried to avoid the subject of Draco Malfoy because it brought back some unpleasant memories but since T.J hadn't been there for their first and second year (she transferred from Drumstrang in their fourth year) she really didn't know Malfoy and didn't understand why Ginny hated him so much. Ginny had no other choice but to try and explain. "The typical answer would be because he's a Malfoy but that's not true. "Ginny said slowly.

"I don't get it." T.J said.

"I grew up in a household that has had nothing but hatred towards the Malfoys ever since before I was born." Ginny started. "My dad absolutely despises Lucius Malfoy and everything he stands for. So does my mother, in fact she hates Lucius even more than my dad does. I never really understood why and whenever I asked all she would tell is to stay away from the Malfoys, especially Draco. Back then all I knew about him was that he was the son of my parents' worst enemy, he went to Hogwarts and was in the same year as Ron and didn't get along with him. I really didn't think much of the last fact because I knew firsthand how difficult it was to get along with Ron. So despite everything my family had told me about the Malfoys I can honestly say with a clear conscious that I had nothing against Malfoy before I met him."

"And after you met him?" T.J asked.

"After I met Malfoy, I realized every single thing my family had told me and I had tried so hard to ignore was true." Ginny said with a bitter smile. "From day one, Malfoy did his best to make my life a living hell and he succeeded. he used to ridicule me about everything, he'd insult my family, he'd call me names, he'd play tricks on me, trip me, steal my things and it continued like that for two years. And those two years were probably the most miserable years in my life."

"And you didn't do anything about it?" T.J said disbelievingly. She couldn't believe the fact that her strong willed (stubborn is more like it) and opened minded (frank) friend would let somebody push her around like that.

"This might be hard for you to believe but I was so horribly shy back then, I stuttered whenever I got nervous which seemed to be all the time and I had no friends at all so that meant I was on my own. Of course Ron and the twins tried to help me out as often as they could but they all had their own lives and their own problems. It got so bad at the end of my second year I decided I had to leave Hogwarts." Ginny said.

"But you're still here?" T.J asked.

"I am." Ginny said, this time a genuine smile spreading over her face. "All thanks to Dom."

"Dom?" T.J questioned.

"Dominiq Zabini." Ginny answered. "Blaise Zabini's older brother."

The look on T.J's face showed utter bewilderment. "Blaise Zabini's older brother? I never even knew Blaise Zabini had an older brother."

"Hardly anybody does and those that do don't talk about him." Ginny said. "He's a squib."

"No!" T.J said. "Blaise has a brother that's a squib?"

"Yes, hard to believe isn't it? A squib being born into a pureblood family is extremely rare and to most purebloods a huge disgrace." Ginny said. "But I didn't care he was the nicest person I'd ever met and my first -and for a while only- friend even though he was three years older than me."

"How did you two meet?" T.J asked.

"We met on the last day of my second year, I was getting off the train and Malfoy and his goons were picking on me as usual and as usual I was crying." Ginny said a faraway look on her face as she remembered.

**Flashback**

Ginny tried to keep the tears from rolling down her face as Malfoy and his two lackeys, Crabbe and Goyle laughed. She bent down to pick up her books. She'd been carrying them in her arms and they had fallen when Malfoy 'accidentally' bumped into her.

"Oops, sorry." He said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"No you're not but you will be if you do that again." Another male voice said.

Ginny looked up in surprise. She saw Malfoy standing next to a tall boy with cobalt blue eyes and light brown hair.

"Now pick up the books you've spilled." He said.

"Who's going to make me?" Malfoy said defiantly.

"I will." the boy said, grabbing Malfoy by the front of his robes. "Now do it or else."

He let go and Malfoy hastily bent down and picked up the books.

Ginny was dumbfounded. Nobody had ever gone out of his or her way to help her or bothered to put Malfoy in his place. She kept staring at the boy. He noticed and gave her a kind smile. She hurriedly looked away.

"Here," Malfoy said, dumping the books in her arms.

"Now apologize," the boy said pleasantly but there was an edge in his voice.

"Sorry." Malfoy muttered.

"There. That wasn't so hard was it?" the boy said. "You can leave now and if you ever bother her again, I will hear of it and when I do, you'll be sorry."

Malfoy didn't waste any time in making himself scarce.

"Thanks," Ginny mumbled, still shocked by the turn of events.

"It was nothing. If there's one thing I hate its bullies." The boy said. "By the way I'm Dominiq Zabini but all my friends call me Dom."

"Ginny Weasley." She replied automatically, then her eyes widened as she realized what the boy had just said. "Zabini?"

"That's what I said isn't it?" Dom replied with a grin. "And before you ask yes Blaise is my sister and no I don't go to Hogwarts because I'm a squib."

"Squib?" Ginny repeated her jaw dropping open.

"It happens." He said with a shrug. "Don't tell me you're one of those witches and wizards who look down on squibs?"

"Of-of- of course not." Ginny said. She felt bad for offending the boy who had just saved her. "I- I mean you- you-"

"Relax, I was just kidding." Dom said with a teasing grin. "So why was Malfoy picking on you?"

"He's always been like that." Ginny answered automatically. "Ever since I started at Hogwarts."

"You want to tell me about it?" Dom asked. "It might help if you talk to somebody about it."

Ginny looked up startled. Nobody, her family included had ever seemed so genuinely interested in her problems. Mulling over the thought, she decided she _did_ want to talk to somebody about her problems with Malfoy.

"There's a really nice ice cream parlor around the corner." He suggested. "We could go there unless you're waiting for somebody to pick you up?"

Ginny shook her head. "Mum's not going to be here for at least another hour." She said after quickly consulting her watch. "And I have no idea where any of my brothers have run off to so I guess it'll be okay."

"Sounds good. Blaise won't be ready to leave for a while and I always dread standing around waiting for her." Dom said.

They started walking towards the ice cream parlor. It wasn't until they were inside eating that Ginny spoke up. "It's so hard to believe-"

"That Blaise and I are related?" Dom chuckled. "Yeah, I've heard that one before but actually Blaise and I have a lot in common."

"Really?" Ginny said doubtfully.

"Have you actually met her?" Dom asked.

"No, but" Ginny said hesitantly. "She's in slytherin and all."

"No surprise there." Dom said with an easy shrug. "All the Zabinis' have been in slytherin. I'd probably be in slytherin if I went to Hogwarts, but that wouldn't change me. You should talk to Blaise, you'd be surprised."

"Like she'd ever want to talk to me." Ginny muttered under her breath.

"Why wouldn't she?" Dom looked surprised. "I haven't known you long and I can tell you're a wonderful person. I'm sure you have lots of friends."

That one sentence caused Ginny to burst into tears. She told Dom how she didn't have any friends and was disliked by the whole school thanks to Malfoy. She poured out her whole heart to him and in return he listened and paid attention to every single word.

"Typical Malfoy behavior," Dom said after she was done telling her tale. "Only picking on the people who won't stand up to him. You know what you need to do?"

"What?" Ginny asked, sniffling.

"You need to stand up to him." Dom said firmly. "Show him that he can't push you around. Then and only then will he stop bothering you."

"I couldn't do that." Ginny said quickly.

"And why not?" Dom said impatiently.

"Because-" Ginny said but then she stopped.

"Because?" Dom repeated, motioning for her to complete her sentence.

"I'm too scared to." She admitted.

"You'll never go anywhere in life if you're too scared. Take my advice Ginny, the next time he insults you or something, don't cry or run away, insult him back or better yet hex him." Dom said.

"I'd never be able to do that." Ginny said, looking down. "It doesn't matter anyway; I'm not going back to Hogwarts next year."

"And what good will that do?" Dom said gently. "I hate to be the one to tell you this but life is filled with people who are like Malfoy or worse. Are you going to spend your life running away from fights?"

"I suppose not." Ginny said. "Besides I doubt my parents would let me leave Hogwarts."

Dom smiled. "So you're going to stand up to Malfoy?"

"I guess." She said, looking frightened and determined at the same time.

"And to all the other people that bully you around even when the mean well?" Dom said.

"You mean my brothers?" Ginny said.

"Why not? Try standing up to them a couple of times this summer, it'll give you enough practice for when school starts." Dom said. "And after you do, you better owl me and give me all the details of Malfoy's downfall at your hands."

"I will." Ginny said. "Thanks Dom."

"Don't mention it." He said with an easy smile. "Now, I have to go but promise me that you're not going to let Malfoy or anybody else intimidate anymore?"

"I won't." Ginny promised and she meant it with her whole heart. "And you promise to keep in touch?"

"Promise." He said before walking away.

**End flashback**

"I saw Dom a couple of more times during the summer and I even got to know Blaise. We got along okay but we didn't become what I'd call real friends. Every time I saw Dom he'd remind me of what I promised him and that just made me even more determined to stand up to Malfoy." Ginny said. "

"And did you?" T.J asked pointedly.

"Of course I did." Ginny said indignantly. "And in front of the whole school too."

"Uh uh." T.J said.

"Oh yeah," Ginny said with a smile. "It was on our first day back at Hogwarts at the feast. I was walking into the Great Hall alone and of course Malfoy noticed this."

**flashback**

"Well, well if it isn't the little weasel all alone. Where are all of your friends?" Malfoy said in a loud voice so the whole hall could here and as a result everybody stopped what they were doing so they could watch. "Oh stupid of me, I forgot you don't have any."

Crabbe and Goyle and a couple of other slytherin fourth years laughed but not Blaise she gave her a look that said 'it's or never'.

Ginny took a deep breath. "Look who's talking? Last time I checked you didn't have any either." She snapped.

There were a couple of audible gasps. The few people who had been too occupied with their personal businesses to pay attention in the beginning now turned to watch the youngest Weasley stand up to the big bad slytherin.

"What how dare you?" Malfoy said. "When my father hears about this-"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah" Ginny interrupted in what she hoped was a bored tone because in reality she was scared to death. "We've all heard it before. Honestly Malfoy can't you think up any new threats. This one's getting kind of old and when are you going to grow up and stop running to daddy every time something goes wrong?"

There was a couple of more gasps, mostly from the slytherin girls but their gasps were drowned out by a noise Ginny was all too familiar with. Laughter. But this time people weren't laughing at her, they were laughing at Malfoy.

Malfoy looked dumbstruck.

"What's the problem, Malfoy?" Ginny taunted. "Weasel got your tongue?"

He didn't say anything and that's when Ginny knew she had won.

**End flashback**

"Wow." T.J said. "Was he really that much of a prat back then?"

"Big time." Ginny said.

"And did he stop after you stood up to him?" T.J wanted to know.

"Nope." Ginny said. "He was so outraged that I, a Gryffindor, a girl and a Weasley had got the best of him that he spent the whole year trying to get back at me. And every time he did something to me I retaliated. I swear I must have spent half my time in detention. It was so much fun. I wish you could've been there, I could've pulled off a lot of more stuff with your help."

"Me too." T.J agreed. "But unfortunately it didn't work out that way. The year I came was the same year he left, right?"

"Right." Ginny said. Malfoy hadn't come back for his fifth year at Hogwarts and nobody knew why and hardly anybody cared but then out of the blue, he resurfaced a year and half later when he came to Hogwarts towards the end of his sixth year. "Now T.J let me ask you something. Why do you like Malfoy?"

"Cos he's so friggin' hot!" T.J said. "I mean have you ever actually looked at him? Six foot, a hundred and sixty gorgeous pounds. He has that air of casual elegance, and of course there's that yummy mouth that just makes you want to go snog the hell out of him and who could ever forget those beautiful pools of melted silver?"

"Fortunately, I know you and understand that you do think more of men then you do puppies in a pet-store window." Ginny said. "but c'mon T.J I get the fact that he's hot but he's also arrogant, egoistical, conceited, and haughty-"

"Gin, all those words mean the same thing." T.J pointed out.

"And they all suit him perfectly well. Malfoy maybe dead sexy but he's really lacking in the personality department." Ginny said. "He's not worth it, T.J."

"Not worth what?" T.J asked.

"Not worth having a crush on." Ginny said. "Guys like him break hearts without spilling a drop of blood."

"Who said I have a crush on him?" T.J said with a shrug. "I just think he'd be a good lay."

"You have such a gift with words." Ginny said dryly.

"Thank you," said T.J, bowing. "but you never know Ginny maybe he's changed."

"Malfoy?" Ginny said. "I don't think so."

"Why not?" T.J said with a shrug. "he hasn't bothered you once since he came back has he?"

"No, but-"

"and he doesn't pick on the little kids like some of the slytherins do, does he?" T.J asked.

"again no, but I'm sure the only reason he doesn't is because he thinks he's too high and mighty to bother to pick on people anymore." Ginny said.

"I don't think that's the case," T.J said doubtfully. "But don't worry Gin-bug; I have zero serious interest in Draco Malfoy."

"Then why did you want to go to his birthday party so badly?" Ginny asked.

"It sounded like it would be fun. Does this mean you're considering going?" T.J said hopefully.

"No!"

"Darn." T.J sighed. "Is there anyway-"

"No!" Ginny said again. "Even after I explained everything to you, you still don't understand-EEK!"

But what exactly T.J didn't understand Ginny never said because at that exact moment an owl flew in from the open window and landed in her hair.

"Stupid owl." Ginny muttered as she tried to detangle its claws from her hair. "There." She said when she done. She took a good look at the owl and frowned.

"What?" asked T.J noticing her frown.

"This looks like Blaise's owl." Ginny said. She picked up the parchment the owl had dropped. "Yup, this is from her. But why would she be writing to me?"

"Open it." T.J suggested. Ginny did as she said. The letter was short and to the point.

**V. Weasley,**

**We need to talk. Meet me at the Quidditch pitch in five minutes. **

**B. Zabini **

"What is that all about?" T.J asked.

"I have no clue." Ginny said.

"You want me to come with you?" T.J said.

"No, it's okay. I'll be back soon." And with that Ginny grabbed her cloak and headed out the door.

Okay ppl here comes the part when the author tries to think up new tactics of getting you to review or they just outright beg you to review. Don't worry I won't do either. I'll just say that you guys will make this the happiest and most memorable birthday I've ever had (well, at least until my next birthday comes) if you send me a review. I'll think of each review as a little birthday card and it will really cheer me up because so far I haven't gotten a single thing (that probably has a lot to do with the fact it's only eight in the morning.) so................................

REVIEW! REVIEW! REVIEW!

That was just pathetic, wasn't it?


	3. Blackmail is such an ugly thing

Hey!!!!!!!!

I know, I know, you're all probably wondering why it took me so long to update chapter three. I had originally planned to have it up two weeks ago, I had it all typed up and ready to go but then the unthinkable happened. My dad's laptop, which I had been using to write my fics, got stolen! It happened at the university where he worked. I was so heartbroken; I kept hoping that it would be recovered but no such luck. So that meant I had to write chapter three all over again because I was too stupid to make a backup, of course I had to wait until we got another computer which was last week and then I had to wait until we got internet to put it up which was yesterday. This is my advice to anybody who writes fics; always make a backup, in fact make more than one backup, the more backups you have the better. I have learned my lesson the hard way and I'm trying to save you the trouble. See, I really liked the old chapter three it was probably the best chapter I had ever written and I'm afraid this one won't be as good. Sigh oh well, at least I tried. Anyhoo, I'm done complaining now so you can go read the chapter but first I'd like to express my gratitude towards all the wonderful people who've reviewed the last chapter and wished my a happy birthday. THANK YOU GUYS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And even though I'm pretty sure you guys know this by heart, let me just remind you all that The Harry Potter universe and it's characters do not belong to me, they all belong to J.K Rowling. Grr I hate having to say that.

_What in the world does Blaise want from me?_ Ginny wondered as she hurried along the dark path that led to the Quidditch Pitch. She took out her wand and muttered _"lumos,"_ The tip of her wand instantly lit up.

"Turn that wretched thing off Weasley unless you want us to get caught."

Ginny trained her wand at the source of the voice. "Zabini?" she said uncertainly.

"Yeah, now turn off your wand and follow me, Flich is going to come by here in a matter of seconds." Blaise said.

Ginny hurriedly whispered, "_Nox_" and followed her into the Quidditch stands. "So what's new?" she said, trying to make conversation.

"Nothing much," Blaise answered with a blatant shrug. "What's new with you?"

"Nothing at all." Ginny said.

Blaise sat down and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, she lit one and offered the pack to Ginny. "You want one?"

"I don't smoke and you know that." Ginny answered. "How's Dom? Have you heard from him lately?"

"Yeah, I got an owl from him 'bout two days ago, said he had finally moved out of the house, he didn't tell me where to though."

"Really? Good for him," Ginny said with an approving grin.

"Depends on the way you look at it," Blaise answered.

"What do you mean?" Ginny asked.

Blaise took a long drag from her cigarette before answering. "My parents are furious with him, in fact Father even told me that if Dom moved to some muggle city- which is prolly where Dom's heading- he would disown him."

"Oh, that's terrible." Ginny said.

"Dom doesn't seem to think so, he's been trying to get Father to disown him practically for ever." Blaise said.  
"Oh, then I guess it's good. "Ginny said. She wondered how long she would have to sit here and try and make small talk with Blaise. She opened her mouth intending to ask the girl what she had wanted from her but it was Blaise who spoke first.

"So, I heard about what you did to Potter today." Blaise said. Ginny couldn't quite see her in the dark but she could tell she was grinning.

Ginny was taken by surprise, she had not been expecting that, "how did you hear that?" Ginny asked suspiciously.

"Are you kidding me? It's all over the school. This is probably the biggest thing that's happened all year long."

"Oh no," said Ginny, burying her face in her hands.

"Oh yes, I was kinda surprised though," Blaise continued. "I thought you and Potter were a serious item."

"Lord help me," Ginny said looking up at the sky. "Why does everybody think that? I can't even stand the guy."

"Really?" Blaise said interestedly.

"Yes, really." Ginny answered irritably. "Now I'd appreciate it very much if you would drop the subject."  
"Fine." Blaise said coolly but secretly she felt like smirking, if Ginny was really thru with Potter than maybe this whole thing was really going to work out! "So are you involved with somebody else?"

"No," Ginny said, wondering were this was heading.

"Is there somebody you want to be involved with?" Blaise asked.

"Okay, what's going on, Zabini?" Ginny asked, putting her hands on her hips.

"What are you talking about?" Blaise said innocently.

Ginny rolled her eyes. "I seriously doubt you asked me to come here so we could discuss my social life, what are you hinting at?" she demanded.

_Damn_, thought Blaise, the girl was sharp, Blaise was pretty sure Ginny would see thru anything she told her. She silently cursed herself for getting into this mess in the first place. Blaise hadn't been planning to talk to Ginny today at all, but right before DADA, Nott had cornered her in the hall and demanded she talk to Ginny a.s.a.p, since the party was only two days away. As a result, Blaise was now sitting across from Ginny and she had absolutely no idea what she was going to say. Blaise decided the best course of action was to tell the truth.

"Well, what are doing this Friday evening?" Blaise said cautiously.

The second Blaise said the word Friday; warning bells went off in Ginny's head. "Not going to Malfoy's birthday party for sure." She answered, just to be on the safe side.

"Because there's this party- wait, you already know about the party?" Blaise asked her shock registered on her face.

"Yes, I do and there is now way in hell I'm going to go that bastard's birthday party." Ginny said firmly.

Blaise was still in shock. "The guys already talked to you?" she asked.

"What guys?" Ginny asked confusedly.

"Nobody important." Blaise said, breathing a sigh of relief. If Nott had talked to Ginny that would've meant that their deal was off and Blaise couldn't risk that. "So how do you know about the party?"

"My friend T.J got an invitation to the party. "Ginny answered.

"T.J," Blaise said, trying to remember the guest list. "Is she in Gryffindor?"

"Yup, she's also a sixth year." Ginny said.

"I don't remember any Gryffindor sixth year being invited, what's her last name?" Blaise asked.

"Chickalini." Ginny said.

"Chickalini. She's that Italian girl, right?" Blaise said.

"Right," Ginny replied.

"Figures," Blaise said with a smirk. "Miles Bletchley has a thing for her."

"Bletchley? The Slytherin Keeper? Eww." Ginny said, wrinkling her nose. "T.J is gonna freak when she hears that."

"Is she going to the party?" Blaise asked.

"I don't know," Ginny answered honestly. T.J hadn't mentioned if she was going planning to go to the party without her.

"Well, if she goes are you going to go with her?" Blaise asked. _Please say yes, Please say yes, Please say yes_, she silently chanted.

"I just said I wasn't!" Ginny said. "What is going on? And why the hell do you want me to go to the party so badly? I mean, I'm sure it would be a much better party if I didn't go."

"Why do you say that?" Blaise asked.

"Because it would be a much better party if anybody –namely the birthday boy- didn't get killed, maimed, or hurt, don't you think? And you can rest assured that if I get stuck in a room that's full of Slytherins that I will do one of the above three." Ginny said.

"I see," Blaise answered. "But as I'm sure you know, it won't only be Slytherins who are going. A lot of people from the other houses are invited and a couple of people from outside of Hogwarts."

"Like who?" Ginny said, perking up.

"Tons of people, most of them are Hogwarts graduates and I'm positive you know at least some of them." Blaise said.

"That's cool." Ginny said.

"Great! Does that mean you've changed your mind about going?" Blaise asked.

"No!"

"Are you even considering going?" Blaise asked.

"No!" Ginny was about ready to pull her hair out, Blaise was driving her nuts and Ginny still had no clue what she was getting at. "And will you please explain why you want me to go to this party? Somebody put you up to this didn't they?"

"Well," Blaise said hesitantly.

Ginny snapped her fingers, "I knew it. It was T.J, wasn't it?"

"What? No," Blaise said taken aback. "I've never spoken to the girl in my life."

"Just had to make sure," Ginny said. "So then who was it?"

Blaise made a split second decision, the hell with the truth, she would prolly get into some serious shit but this was her only plan. "Yes you're right. Somebody did ask me to get you to come to the party and that person is-"

"Is-?" Ginny asked. "C'mon continue."

"None other than Draco himself." Blaise said.

There was a very big silence and then the strangest thing happened. Ginny began to laugh uncontrollably.

"What?" Blaise asked.

"It's just-" that's all Ginny could say before she broke into another fit of laughter.

"Weasley?" Blaise said. She was starting to get worried, maybe Ginny's mind couldn't take it all and she had gone mad. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine just give me a minute to catch my breath," Ginny said between gasps. "Phew," she said wiping a tear.

"What happened?" Blaise said. "Was it something I said?"

"Yeah, for a second there I thought you were serious about the whole Malfoy thing." Ginny said. "That was a good one."

"Weasley, are you dense?" Blaise said. "I was serious."

There was another very big silence.

"I'm sorry, did you just say that you were serious when you said that Malfoy wanted me at his party?" Ginny asked

"I did." Blaise replied.

"Malfoy, the 'Prince of Slytherin' wants me, a Gryffindor, a Weasley and prolly his biggest enemy after Potter to go to his birthday party?" Ginny asked again, just to make sure.

"He does." Blaise said.

"That is the biggest bullshit I have ever heard in my entire life." Ginny stated.

"It's true. He's had a change of heart and he would really love it if you came." Blaise lied with a straight face. Actually if the Dragon ever found out what she just did he would kill her.

"Well, that's it," said Ginny, standing up as if she was going to leave. "If there was any doubt in my head about going to Malfoy's party this settles it. There is no way I'm going to ever do anything just cause that ass wants me to. That would be sinking down to a level that is below low."

"What?" Blaise exploded. She was at her wits end; obviously Ginny's hatred for the Dragon still ran deep, Blaise was beginning to think that there was no way she was going to get Ginny to go to the party on her own. It was time to take drastic action.

"So what you're saying is that no matter what I say I'm not going to change your mind?" Blaise said carefully.

"Exactly." Ginny said." I don't know what's going on and I'm not sure if I want to but I do know this much, there is no way I'm voluntarily going to step foot into that party. Now if you'll excuse me, I have better things to do." And with that Ginny got up and started to go back down the stairs.

_Time for me to play my trump card _thought Blaise. "I didn't want it to come to this." She said. "But I'm afraid that you leave me no choice."

Ginny stopped but she didn't turn around. "What are you talking about?"

"I tried to give you the easy way out but you didn't want it." Blaise said, her Slytherin side starting to show. "Let me remind you of something. You remember the summer before your fifth year when you came to spend the day with Dom and me?"

Ginny turned around. "You're not thinking about-"

"You're making me," Blaise said evenly. "So where was I? Oh yes, as I recall you came to spend the day with us and in the evening we went out to that club with some of Dom's friends, you do remember don't you?"

Ginny closed her eyes. "I hate you, you know that?" she said softly.

"It's a free country," Blaise with shrug. "And then Dom had to leave so it was only you and me and John? You remember him, don't you? The one who got you seriously drunk and tried to rape you? And when I realized you were missing I spent over an hour looking for you and didn't stop until I found you in that back storage room with that pervert standing over you. I got you out of there, cleaned you up- which was a very messy and disgusting job- and covered up for you by telling your parents that you were going to spend the night with us and I did it all out of the kindness in my heart."

"Liar," Ginny said, opening her eyes. "You did it because Dom told you that he would kill you if anything happened to me since it was you who wanted to stay in the first place."

"Whatever," Blaise said. "But the point is I saved your ass and you owe me. Wizard's debt. You are by law required to pay me back with any favor of my choosing. And do you know what that is?"

"Ooh, ooh, ooh, let me guess," Ginny said unenthusiastically. "You're going to use it as blackmail to get me to go to the party." It was a statement not a question.

"I always knew you were a smart one," Blaise said.

"You're a bitch, Zabini. A manipulative, coldhearted, self-centered bitch." Ginny said.

"Wrong," Blaise said with an insensitive smile. "I'm a Slytherin."  
"I never knew there was difference," Ginny said dryly.

"There isn't," Blaise said, "now back to our original subject, you get the fact that you have no say in this, right?"

"Unfortunately," Ginny said with a heavy sigh. "Fine, I'll go. Now if you have nothing else to say, I'll be going."

"Not so fast, Weasley," Blaise said. "I still have a couple more thing say. First, when you come to the party I want you to be nice to Draco."

"You gotta be shitting me," Ginny said, appalled.

"Language Weasley." Blaise admonished. "Who knew you had such a potty mouth?"

"You Slytherins bring out the worst in me," Ginny said.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Blaise said. "And just for the record, I am dead serious, I want you to be nice to Draco, after all it is his birthday."

"The hell with his birthday, I can't be nice to Malfoy, it doesn't go." Ginny said.

"At least be civil towards him," Blaise said.

"Okay, I'll be civil," Ginny replied, "I won't punch his lights out the minute he comes near me."

"You are impossible." Blaise said, looking skywards.

"I try my best," Ginny answered with a bow.

"Well, I want you to try your best to be civil towards Draco and I also want you to flirt with him," Blaise said, bracing herself for the response.

"What?" Ginny screeched. "You want me to what?"

"Lower your voice. You want the whole school to hear you?" Blaise said, looking towards the castle

"I don't care if the whole universe hears me!" Ginny shouted. "I can not flirt with Malfoy! It's not natural; in fact it goes against the laws of nature! Hell, it goes against the laws of everything!"

"Oh c'mon, stop overreacting," Blaise said.

"You think I'm overreacting?" Ginny yelled. "Try being told that you're supposed to flirt with your worst enemy, let's see how you react."

"If he was anywhere near as hot as my boy Draco is, I wouldn't mind at all and I don't think you should mind either." Blaise answered.

"I don't care what you think," Ginny shot back. "I don't want to flirt with Malfoy."

"It's not you're choice or are you forgetting that?" Blaise said.

"I doubt I'll ever forget this and you can be sure that I will get you back when this is all over." Ginny said.

_As long as everything goes according to plan and I get Oliver you could hex me to Mexico and I won't give a damn,_ Blaise said to herself, out loud she said, "Bring it on."

"Oh believe me I will," Ginny said. "As soon as I get over the fact that you are blackmailing me to flirt with Malfoy."

"Don't think of it as blackmail, think of it as a favor," Blaise said, thinking about Oliver.

"A favor?" Ginny said. "Let me guess, somebody asked you to get me to go to the party and in return they're doing you a favor?"

"Correct," Blaise said.

"I should've known," Ginny said shaking her head. "You'd never do anything unless there was something in it for you."

"Touché." Blaise said.

"What would Dom say if he knew?" Ginny said. She was purposely baiting Blaise; she knew that Dom's opinion of her was the only opinion in the world that mattered to Blaise.

"Nothing because he won't know," Blaise said sharply.

_We'll just see about that,_ Ginny thought. It was cruel but it was the perfect way to get back at Blaise. "Whatever you say, Zabini,"

"I mean it, Weasley," Blaise warned. She did not want her brother finding out about this.

"I'll just mention to him that he has a wacko for a sister. I mean, first you want me to be nice to Malfoy-"

"Which includes not calling him by his last name." Interrupted Blaise.

Ginny chose to ignore her. "And you know better than most people how I feel about him. Second, you force me to _flirt_ with him which is just disgusts me to no end, the next thing I know you're prolly gonna ask me to sleep with him."

Blaise's heart leapt. "Would you?" she asked hopefully.

Ginny took a look at Blaise's face. "Oh my god!" she said, "Oh my god, you're serious! You actually want me to sleep with Malfoy! No way, no fucking way. I am not going to have sex with Malfoy! I don't care what I owe you; you can't make me sleep with. Go the party, yes. Be civil towards Malfoy, fine. Flirt with him, maybe but having sex with him, that is where I draw the line. In fact, consider the whole thing called off, you can take this matter to the Ministry of Magic if you want but I will not sleep with Malfoy."

Blaise watched the hysterical girl with a lot of amusement and a little bit of apprehension. She was pretty sure that Ginny would start spewing hexes any minute now, just to be on the safe side she took a couple of steps away from Ginny and took her wand out. "Weasley, calm down." She said when Ginny finally paused to take a breath. "Nobody's going to make you sleep with Draco if you don't want to." _I'll just have to find a way to make you want to,_ She added silently.

"You better believe I don't want to," Ginny snapped.

"You're really weird, you know that?" Blaise said. "You are most likely the only girl in the whole school who doesn't want to get into Draco's bed."

"Well, you don't want to get into Draco's bed, so I guess that makes you weird too." Ginny said smugly.

"Actually it's more of a been there, done that kinda thing," Blaise said offhandedly. "But what's your reason for not wanting to sleep with Draco?"

"Hello!" Ginny said. "I can't stand him."

"So?" Blaise said.

"And I absolutely hate his guts," Ginny added.

"What's that got to do with anything?" Blaise said. "You don't have to like somebody to sleep with them, you don't even have to get along with them. Trust me, I speak from experience. Sex is a physical thing, it has nothing to do with the way you feel about someone."

"Aha, I'll keep that in mind," Ginny said. "But meanwhile I'm sticking with my first statement, I'm not going to have sex with Malfoy."

"Suit yourself," Blaise said. "But I have to tell you, you have no idea what you're missing out on. I doubt there is anybody in Hogwarts who is as skilled as a lover as Draco is, I mean he does things with his mouth you would have never considered possible."

"Thank you for giving me nightmares for the rest of my life," Ginny deadpanned with a shudder. .

"Oh please," Blaise said rolling her eyes. "Are you trying to tell me that you've never looked at Draco and thought 'Damn, Draco has a really cute ass' or 'wow, I wonder how it would feel to snog Draco'?"

"Yes," Ginny answered hotly, her cheeks flaming. Well, it was partly true she _had_ once thought that Malfoy's ass was cute but that was before she knew that the cute ass belonged to Malfoy since he had been turned around at the time.

"Are you sure?" Blaise asked.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ginny demanded. "Are you trying to imply that I might have the slightest nonnegative feeling towards Malfoy?"

"Did I say that?" Blaise said innocently.

"Because I don't. Every single feeling I have for Malfoy is completely, 100 negative and there is not a drop of positive in it." Ginny said.

"If you say so," Blaise said in the same aloof tone of voice.

"You know what? I don't have to sit here and take this from you, I'm leaving." Ginny said.

"Yeah, me too." Blaise said, getting up. "I'll see you on Friday. The party starts at eight, okay?"

"Yeah whatever." Ginny said absently.

"So that means I'll come over around seven." Blaise continued.

"What? Why?" Ginny asked.

"One, to make sure that you go," Blaise said ticking it off on her fingers. "Two, to give you a mini makeover."

"Excuse me?" Ginny said, her jaw dropping open, "I happen to like the way I look."

"That's a good thing. It's so rare to find people who like their appearances these days. I mean the statistics are like four in every five women don't like they way they look or something like that. Isn't that crazy?" Blaise said, shaking her head and starting to walk away.

"I don't care about statistics," Ginny shouted. "I don't want a makeover!"

"Well hon, you need one," Blaise replied. "While there is nothing wrong with the way you look, it's just not suitable for the party."

"What? You want to make me to look like a ho?" Ginny said sarcastically.

"Exactly," Blaise called somewhere from the darkness.

Ginny let out an ear splitting and very frustrated scream.

_That went pretty well,_ Blaise thought to herself with a smile. While she hadn't exactly gotten Ginny to agree to sleep with Malfoy she had at least got her to come to the party and she was still in one piece. That in it's self was a miracle. She was walking down the hall and about to go in the Slytherin common room when she heard somebody call her name. Blaise turned around and saw Crabbe coming towards her.

"Did you talk to her?" He asked.

"Yes," Blaise said.

"So is she going to do it?" Crabbe asked impatiently.

"What? Sleep with the Dragon?" Blaise said, going inside the common room "I seriously doubt it."

"I thought you said you talked to her." Crabbe said.

"I did and I got her to agree to come to the party." Blaise said. "I indirectly asked her if she would consider sleeping with the Dragon and she flipped out. Literally. So you guys should consider yourselves lucky that she's even coming."

"Great. What are we supposed to do now?" Crabbe said.

"I'm sure Nott will come up with something." Blaise said, she stopped in front of the stairs that led to her dorm. "Meanwhile, I've kept up my part of the deal, it's time you keep up yours. How can I find Oliver?"

"I'm not sure if I'm supposed to tell you." Crabbe said slowly.

_At least I know that you know,_ Blaise thought triumphantly. Crabbe and Goyle were a lot dimmer than Nott and it was so much easier to get information out of them. "C'mon," she coaxed, giving him her most winning smile. "Nott would've told me too and you're just saving me the trouble of having to go look for him."

"I guess you're right," Crabbe said. "Okay, Wood's actually in Scotland right now. He's staying at the Black Iris Inn and his room number is 206."

"Are you sure?" Blaise asked, trying to hide her anxiety.

"Of course. Me and Goyle went to check it out a couple of days ago," Crabbe said with a shrug.

"Thank you!" Blaise cried. She impulsively threw her arms around Crabbe and gave him a quick peck on the cheek before hurrying up to her dorm room. Since Blaise was usually a very unemotional person, her reaction caused a lot of confusion in the Common Room but Blaise was too happy to worry about that. After three long years, she was about to see Oliver again.

Ginny flew around the Quidditch Pitch two more times before she landed near the broom shed. Like always, flying had managed to calm her nerves and made her a bit more relaxed. At least now she didn't feel like killing Blaise, she just felt like hurting her, badly. It was a shame she didn't get to fly more often, she thought as she put away Ron's broomstick, she really loved it but her parents and her brothers- mainly Ron- thought it was too dangerous for a girl, so she had to resort to sneaking around and flying when nobody was present.

She sighed as she replayed her recent confrontation with Blaise in her mind for the fiftieth time, it was like a nightmare come true but she still had hope that she would find a way to get out of it. Maybe the party would somehow be canceled or she'd get sick or better yet Malfoy would get sick! She smiled and thought that could be easily arranged. With those somewhat pleasant thoughts in her mind Ginny walked into the castle feeling much lighter and happier than she had all day.

But the second she walked into the Gryffindor common room her light, happy mood all but disappeared. A rather frenzied Hermoine grabbed Ginny and pulled her behind a couch.

"What the hell?" Ginny said loudly.

"Shush," Hermoine replied, looking around wild-eyed. "Where were you?" she demanded in a whisper. "I was looking everywhere for you. I'm so glad I found you before Ron did."

"Ron is looking for me too?" Ginny said. "Why?"

"No time to explain, just go in your dorm and don't come out for a couple of days. I'm sure he'll have calmed down by then." Hermoine whispered.

"He's that angry, huh?" Ginny said.

"Yeah, I've never seen him this mad." Hermoine answered.

"Well, hurray for me," Ginny said dryly. Had this been any other situation she would've looked forward to it but as it was she was in no mood to face her brother. Ginny got up from behind the couch and made her way towards the stairs. She hadn't even taken a step when-

"VIRGINA WEASELY!"

Ginny sighed she had been caught. She turned around and plastered a big fake bright smile on her face. "Hello Ron, fancy running into you here," she said so cheerfully she wanted to puke.

Ron started to walk towards her. Since he was six three, very muscular and had a raging temper he easily intimidated most of the students at Hogwarts and if he had been walking towards anybody but his sister that person would've by now wet themselves.

"How could you?" he thundered. "Do you know what people are saying?"

"You know Ron, I have prolly had the worst day in my whole entire life and listening to you now would only make it worse. So how 'bout we all go sleep right now and the next time we run into each other you can yell at me all you want and I'm sure we'll both enjoy it more, okay?" Ginny said.

Ron continued to walk menacingly towards her. Hermoine put one hand on his arm as if she thought that would calm her boyfriend down.

"Or we could do it your way," Ginny said with a sigh. "What was it you were saying?"

"He asked you if you knew what people were saying?" Hermoine inputted helpfully.

"Ron, Ron, Ron," Ginny said, shaking her head. "My dear older brother, how many times have I told you not to believe everything you hear?"

"So you mean it's not true?" Ron asked suspiciously.

"Depends on what you heard," Ginny replied. "Did you hear that I dumped Harry publicly and then knocked him out cold by breaking a school vase over his head and then did the same to another student and all of this was witnessed by McGonogall so I got a total of thirty points taken away and three detentions?"

"Yes," Ron and Hermoine said simultaneously.

"Oh, in that case it's true," Ginny said.

"WHAT?" Ron shouted.

Ginny stood her ground. "Yes it's true. And let me just say that I do not regret any of it one bit, well maybe except for the detentions." She added thoughtfully.

Ron took a deep breath; it was obvious that he was trying to keep his temper in check. "Why did you do that to Harry?"

"What? Knock him out cold?" Ginny asked. "I hadn't planned to do that but-"

"No, break up with him! I doubt you could find a guy who was a better gentleman then Harry." Ron said.

"Who said I wanted a gentleman?" Ginny said. "I don't want a gentleman and for the record that was partly the reason I broke up with Harry."

"Excuse me?" Ron said. Hermoine started to shake her head frantically.

"You heard me," Ginny said. "I don't like guys who are gentleman I happen to prefer the exact opposite."

"YOU WHAT?" Ron bellowed.

"And there is nothing you can do about it." Ginny said.

"Look Ginny, you're just tired. We'll talk this over in the morning and hopefully you'll be back in your right state of mind by then." Hermoine said soothingly.

"Hermoine's right, Ginny. You did say you had a rough day, you just need to go to sleep and we'll talk tomorrow. Meanwhile I'll talk to Harry and see if he would be willing to take you back-"

"What the fuck?" Ginny went off. "Are you crazy? Did you just not here what I said? I don't like Harry and I don't want to go out with him. And Ron I'm afraid you're missing a little detail here, this is my life. I choose who I date, you don't choose for me and if you think Harry's such a good guy to date then you date him! I should've told you this a long time ago Ron but I didn't want to hurt your feelings but you have gone too far this time. Ron, you have absolutely no say in what I do, what I wear, who I date or any other part of my life, understand?"

"You don't want to date Harry?" Ron said. Now he seemed more confused than angry. "But you've had a crush on him since you were ten."

"No I had a crush on him _when _I was ten and eleven however I stopped having a crush on him when I was twelve, big difference."

"But he was your first crush and women always have feelings for their first crush." Ron said.

"Who is the idiot who told you that?" Ginny said. "There is not an ounce of truth to that because if there was Hermoine would now be with Marcus Flint instead of you since he was her first crush and that lasted for five years as opposed to my crush on Harry which lasted for a year and a half."

Ron gasped and looked at Hermoine. "Is that true?" he asked.

"I-you-I," Hermoine stammered helplessly before throwing an angry glance at Ginny. "Why did you tell him that? It was a secret!"

"Well, so was my crush on Harry. But obviously you can't keep my secrets, so why should I keep yours?" Ginny retorted.

"You had a crush on Flint?" Ron said.

"Yes, but it was a long time ago and it doesn't have anything to do with our relationship," Hermoine said.

"It has everything to do with it! I can't believe you-"

Ginny left the bickering couple and went up to her dorm room. Once there she threw herself onto her bed and closed her four-poster bed's curtains.

"Ginny?" called T.J. "what's up?"

"I'm hoping that this day was nothing more than a bad dream and I'm going to wake up any minute now." Came Ginny's muffled voice.

"Sorry to disappoint you but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon." T.J answered getting up from her bed to walk over to Ginny's. She opened the curtain. "What happened?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you." Ginny replied with out looking up.

"Try me." T.J said.

"Oh fine," Ginny said getting up. "But don't say I didn't warn you." She then relayed her story starting from her meeting with Blaise up to her confrontation with her brother.

"So this means we're going to the party?" T.J asked with a smile spreading over her face.

"Yes and wipe that smile of your face." Ginny answered without looking at her best friend.

"This rocks!" T.J said.

"Wrong, it sucks." Ginny said. "Now if you don't mind I'm going to go to sleep and try to erase this unfortunate day from my memory." And with that she closed her curtains again.

_What did I do to deserve this?_ thought Ginny with a silent groan.

Well, that's it for chapter three! Review and tell me what you think! All ideas, suggestions and constructive criticisms are welcome!


	4. It's Complicated

**A/N**: I know you guys are all probably shocked that I came back to this story since the last chapter I wrote was put up close to two years ago. To tell the truth, I'm not sure why I started writing the fic but it was like a cold that just wouldn't go away so I wrote but now it has come back to haunt me. I had so many plans for this fic but it just never got off the ground. I'm gonna try to pick up this fic from where I left off, forgive me if it's a little off cos I'm a bit rusty. To old readers and to those who are reading this for the first time, I have one thing to say REVIEW!

Another thing, I am absolutely wholly utterly totally entirely in love with Draco Malfoy. He is just perfection and I want to eat him all up. He is soooooooooooooo cute! And adorable and sweet and just charms your socks off although I'm pretty sure it's not intentional. sigh I had to get that out. I was just watching the 2nd HP movie on ABC (only because my younger sister insisted) and it was at the part when Harry and Ron impersonate Crabbe and Goyle and they're trying to find their way into the Slytherin Common Room and Draco comes and he sees Goyle (Crabbe?) who's actually Harry wearing glasses, which by the way is one of the many things that are not supposed to happen cos they're not cannon but do, and asks him why he's wearing it and Harry lies and says it's for reading. Draco gets this look on his face and goes, "I didn't know you could read," and I just fell in love with him all over again. If you are a true Draco Malfoy fan then you know what I'm talking about. Or maybe you don't. Well, either way if you just read this are going, huh? What the hell is she on? I wish I could say BUTTERBEER! But I have yet to try that although I plan to just as soon as I find Hogsmeade. Which I will get started on when I finish writing this chapter. Yeah I know it's weird to write the A/N when I haven't written the chapter yet. I have an old chapter which I started back in September of 2004 but I don't want to use it. Unfortunately that means I have to start all over again which is the hardest part for me. The beginning, I mean. Once I get my flow I'm just fine. So I got my glasses on, my favorite pencap in my mouth, a glass of water next to me and I'm listening to one of my favorite songs. Only problem is it has a really good beat and you just want to get up and start dancing. Okay I'm really gonna shut up know and start writing.

One more thing, thanks to all the wonderful people who reviewed the last chapter. You guys rock!

**Disclaimer:** In my disclaimer for the old chapter four I had written "Harry Potter doesn't belong to me nor do I want to own him so I don't feel bad when I say that he belongs to J.K Rowling. Unfortunately so do the other HP characters and there are quite a few that I _would_ like to own, for example Draco Malfoy. soulful sigh _be still my heart!_" I still want to own Draco Malfoy but I've changed my mind about Harry. See, I was going thru an 'I hate Harry' stage then and I'm over it know and would gladly own Harry if I was given the chance. I think he is dead sexy, in his own way of course, so I'm not gonna be so hard on him and I have to admit the Harry in my earlier chapters is a bit OOC but I'm gonna change that or find a way around it. And I'm honestly shutting up now.

888888888

The night before the party Ginny was struck with a strong bout of insomnia. Despite the fact that Ginny had gone to bed nearly three hours ago, she was still having a hard time sleeping. No matter which way she tossed and turned, sleep would not come to her. Finally she just gave up. Ginny decided to go next door to the 7th year girls' room where T.J was spending the night with Parvarti and Lavender. She was sure they were still awake, no doubt talking about the party since they were all invited, Ginny thought. As soon as the thought crossed her mind, she banished it with a shake of her head. Ginny had spent the better of the past twenty-four hours thinking about ways to get out of it and she had come up with nothing, nada, zilch so she had decided that she wouldn't think about it and pray that if there was a God he would find a way for her to get out of this mess that was her life.

Ginny got out of her bed as quietly as she could, making sure not to disturb the other girls and searched for her favorite slippers and robe. After a while, she found one fuzzy blue slipper on the windowsill and its mate under her table. Her search for her robe, however, turned out to be unsuccessful. Her shirt wasn't _that_ indecent, she mused as she tried to tug it down to at least cover her knees to no avail. Although Hermione would have a heart attack if she saw her wearing it and nothing else. The thought brought a grin to her face and she toyed with the idea of doing just that the next day to get back at her for spilling her secrets to her brother. Speaking of which, he'd probably take off his own clothes and make her put it on. _"Honestly Gin,"_ she could imagine him saying, _"What will people think?"_ Ginny had long given up on trying to explain to him that she didn't give a damn _what_ people thought.

"Stubborn git," she muttered. Despite their closeness in age, Ginny was not close to Ron at all. In fact, she wasn't close to any of her brothers. While Charlie and Bill did their best to spoil her because she was their only sister, there was too much of an age difference between them and the last time they lived at home permanently was when she was seven. The twins were each other's best friends and between getting out of all the trouble they got themselves in, they didn't have much time for anyone else. Percy just didn't know how to be close to anyone and Ron was completely out of the question because he was well, _Ron_. He hovered over her, stuck his nose into her business, had repeatedly ruined her life and seemed to think he had a right to do all of the above. At least he had been staying out of her life these past couple of days. He had been giving her the cold shoulder ever since he found out that she had not only dumped his best friend but had tried to give him some serious brain damage while she was at it _and_ she was refusing to apologize for either offense.

"And he thinks he's bothering me by not talking to me," Ginny said gleefully.

Eliza, who was the lightest sleeper out of them rolled over to face Ginny and opened one eye. "Who the hell are you talking to Ginny?" she demanded irritably.

"Nobody." Ginny answered quickly. "Myself." She added feeling a need to clarify.

Eliza raised an eyebrow. "You were talking to yourself?" she repeated.

"Is there a problem with that?" Ginny said.

"Um yes, coupled with that smile on your face you look and act the part of a complete maniac." Eliza answered.

Ginny took a quick look in the mirror. Yikes! With her mussed hair (it had gotten that way during her tossing and turning) and gleeful look she did look crazy.

"You need help, Ginny. Bad." Eliza said looking at her look at herself. She turned around and went back to sleep.

"At the moment I'm not sure if completely disagree with you." Ginny said under her breath as she put on her slippers and left the room.

Amidst the silence, she could hear giggles and hushed voices which she could only guess was coming out of the 7th year girl's room. She walked quickly down the dark hall and stopped when she got to the source of all the noise. She rapped twice on the door and stood back when she heard somebody stand up to get the door.

"Who is it?" Parvati called from the other side of the door.

"It's Ginny, open up Parvati." Ginny said impatiently.

The door was immediately flung open by someone with a yellow face and a green hair. Ginny gave an involuntary gasp and took a step back.

"Shush," Parvati (at least Ginny thought it was her) admonished. "Someone might hear you. Come inside quick."

Parvati ushered her in and shut the door behind her. Ginny was greeted by the sight of two other green haired and yellow faced people which could only be Lavender and T.J.

"Hey Gin-bug," T.J said waving cheerfully. "I knew you'd join us."

Now that the initial shock of seeing them like that had worn off, Ginny was struck by how ridiculous they looked and she started laughing. "You guys should see yourselves; you look wow- I don't even think there's a word for how you look right now. Is that pineapple you have on your face?"

"Yup, it's a pineapple mask to be exact," Parvati said. "It gets rid of the fine lines."

"But you don't have fine lines." Ginny pointed out.

"That's cos I use this," Parvati said proudly pointing at her face.

"Okay. I suppose in Parvatiland that makes sense." Ginny said. "And what the heck did you put in your hair?"

"Avocado paste." Lavender chimed. "It's supposed to make your hair more sleek and smooth to the touch."

Ginny looked to T.J as if to ask her if they were for real but she just shrugged.

"You know sometimes I wonder if the whole world has gone insane and I'm the only sane one left or the exact opposite." Ginny said shaking her head.

"Don't we all wish that we knew," T.J sighed. "But that is neither here nor there."

"I totally second that," Lavender said with a wicked grin. "Not when we could be talking about more _important_ things, like say, you're upcoming date with the Dragon."

Ginny looked accusingly at T.J. "I can't believe you told them!" she said. "I told you not to tell anyone."

"No you didn't," T.J disagreed not looking the least bit bothered.

"Yes I did!" Ginny replied.

"No you didn't," T.J repeated spacing her words as if she was speaking to a child. "You told me what happened, how it happened, your speculations on why it happened but you never once said that I couldn't tell someone else."

Ginny wracked her brain trying to think back to when she'd first told all this to T.J. In the end she silently agreed with T.J that she had in fact not told her to not tell anyone but Ginny hated to be wrong, so she continued to argue her non existent case. "Well you should've already known that!" she said.

"'Scuse moi?" T.J said. "I wasn't aware I was a mind reader."

Ginny ignored her sarcasm and plowed on ahead. "It should've been a given. It's like one of the best friends rules. Heck, it's probably the first rule in the best friends' code of conduct book. If thou's best friend tells you a secret, thou shall not reveal said best friend's secret."

"Isn't it supposed to be thy best friend?" Lavender interjected.

At the same time Parvati asked, "There's a book on best friends' code of conduct? How come I never knew that? I didn't even know there was a code of conduct."

Ginny stared at the girl. _I always knew that one had a few loose screws_, she thought.

Meanwhile T.J was answering Lavender's question. "No, I think Ginny got it right." She said.

"Are you sure?" Lavender said with a frown. "Something about 'thou's best friend' sounds wrong."

"Don't you think we're getting a just a bit sidetracked?" Ginny asked.

Both Lavender and T.J ignored her. "Thy's best friend doesn't sound much better." T.J retorted.

"I'm sure we have a book on Old English somewhere in this room. Why don't we just look it up?" Lavender said leaning over the bed so she could rummage under it.

"I didn't know you read," Parvati said inanely, mostly just because she couldn't stand being left out of the conversation.

"I don't. The book mostly likely belongs to Hermione, I just remember seeing it."

"People!" Ginny shouted. "This is all beside the point. The point is T.J shouldn't have told you guys but she did so now you guys can't tell anyone."

"But-" Lavender began.

"Lavender, if you don't want to spend the rest of your year at Hogwarts walking around with green hair and a yellow face, you will not under _any_ circumstances tell _anyone _about this fiasco with Malfoy." Ginny threatened.

"fiasco?" T.J repeated with a grin. "C'mon Gin, you can come up with something better than that."

"How about date?" Parvati suggested.

"No, how bout interlude, or preview to affair, or your secret tryst with the Dragon?" Lavender said with a wicked grin.

"Oh oh oh," T.J said excitely. "I have the perfect one. Your rendezvous with the Dragon."

"Good one," Parvati said, admiringly.

"I like it," Lavender decided.

Ginny gaped at the girls who were busy exchanging high fives. "You know what?" She said, snapping her mouth shut. "I'm not even dignifying that with a comment."

"Oh c'mon Gin and Tonic," Lavender said. "Why are you so upset? This is the Dragon we're talking about. Any girl would kill to have some one on one time with him."

"Not this one," Ginny said, rubbing her temples. It seemed like she kept having this conversation over and over again. "How about we just drop the subject?"

But Lavender was not one to be deterred. "Do you know how famous you're going to be when people find out? I bet even _Witch Weekly _would be interested in doing a story on it. The Gryffindor and the Slytherin. Love Defies All. How I tamed the Dragon. Something like that" She said.

"How I tamed the Dragon sounds like it came straight out of the _Quibbler_ not _Witch Weekly_." T.J commented.

"Hey, it's their job to come up with the title." Lavender replied, waving T.J's comment aside. "We'll just provide the story."

"Not if you plan to live to see your eighteenth birthday, you won't!" Ginny said, appalled at the direction the conversation was going.

"Maybe if it's a big enough story, _The Wizard Times_ will pick it up," Parvati proposed.

"Hmm," Lavender said thoughtfully. "Maybe. You know, if they're having a really slow day."

"Deep breaths Ginny," T.J advised, noticing her best friend was about to blow a gasket. "In and out. In and out. Got it?"

Ginny nodded. When she thought she was able to speak without screaming, she replied to Lavender and Parvati. "That's a nice fairytale but you're forgetting something. There is absolutely nothing going between me and the Drag- shoot, I mean Malfoy nor will there ever be." She said, trying to sound as firm as she could.

"You keep telling yourself that," Lavender said. "Accept it Gin, it's going be the love story of the year."

"But I don't even like him!" Ginny burst out.

"I want to be your bridesmaid!" Parvati suddenly said.

Ginny chocked, she literally chocked. "bbb- bridesmaid?" she managed to croak out.

"That's what it will probably lead to." Lavender said, nodding.

"Is nobody listening to a word I say?" Ginny asked.

"Hmm?" T.J looked up at Ginny. "I'm sorry Ginny did you say something?"

Ginny grabbed the nearest pillow and let loose a very frustrated scream.

888888888

The next morning was no better. If anything it was worse. After she'd left the 7th year girls dorm room, Ginny had gone to her own room to try and go to sleep but that hadn't happening. Thanks to Parvati and Lavender, she kept having really whacky dreams of getting married to Malfoy on a sinking boat but instead of wearing a wedding dress she was wearing a straight jacket. And for some really weird reason she had yet to figure out, McGonagall dressed as a minister was doing the ceremony and Hagrid was playing the piano but instead of playing the wedding march, he was playing the funeral march. It was all very disturbing. As a result, Ginny was in a completely foul mood. She made the mistake of snarling at the Fat Lady on her way out of the Gryffindor tower so instead of going to breakfast with the rest of school she had to endure a lecture about manners. To top it all of, her first class of the morning was Double Potions with the Slytherins, taught by the one and only Severus Snape.

"Somebody just _Avada Kedavra_ me right now and put me out of my misery." Ginny mumbled as she stood outside the dungeon in which they had their Potions class.

"You don't mean that, Ginny." Colin Creevy said looking a bit reprimanding.

"Oh yes I do, Colin. If a Death Eater- if there's any left of them- was to walk in here and start killing people, I'd put myself directly in his path." Ginny replied.

"That's twisted, Gin," Colin said shaking his head.

"So is my life," Ginny retorted.

"Mr. Creevy, Ms. Weasely, you two have exactly five seconds to get inside the classroom and find seats or I will deduct ten points from Gryffindor, each." Snape said, smiling sickeningly.

The two rushed in the room and finding an empty bench in the back of the room, sat down. Ginny usually would have sat next to T.J but since she had been a bit late, her seat had been taken.

"Now today we are going to continue our discussion on healing potions, Open your books to page 543." Snape snapped out.

The class rushed to do as he said. The minute he began to lecture, Ginny zoned him out. Although they were going to have to spend the next half of the class making the potions he was talking about, Ginny was confident in Colin's potion making ability. He was one of the smartest students in her year. Not the coolest, not the bravest, nor most coordinated but definitely one of the smartest. With that in mind, Ginny dozed off. She was rudely awakened later by Colin's elbow jabbing into her side.

"Get up," Colin hissed. "We're supposed to be getting our supplies." He motioned to the rest of the class who were busy digging in the cupboards.

"Right," Ginny said, yawning. "What are we making anyway?"

"You don't know what we're making?" Colin asked jaw slacked.

"Nope." Ginny said, leisurely getting up when she noticed Snape wasn't in the room.

"Don't you ever pay attention?" Colin demanded.

"Not in Potions." Ginny replied.

"And how do you plan to get through school without paying attention?" Colin asked as he bent down to get a cauldron.

"I pay attention," Ginny disagreed. "Just not in Potions. I don't plan to be a Potions Master, or a Medi-witch or anything in that field. So for me, this class is basically just a load of crap."

What happened next was extremely bizarre, at least in Ginny's eyes. For some reason, all the students had stopped buzzing and chattering, so what had been intended only for Colin's ears was heard throughout the entire classroom.

"Is that so, Ms. Weasely?" Came Snape's soft menacing voice from right behind her.

Ginny winced, as she slowly turned around. _Well, at least now I know why everybody was so quiet,_ she thought. _Now how to get out the jam she had just put herself in?_

"Umm, that is, you see-" She stammered unintelligibly as she tried to think of a rational, reasonable, way to explain why she had called his class a load of crap.

"Twenty-five points from Gryffindor." Snape said. The Gryffindors in the class groaned and shot Ginny hateful looks, T.J and Colin being the exception. "And detention tonight. Here. With me. You will organize all the potions and potion ingredients in this room alphabetically. If you took this class seriously Ms. Weasely you might've had a chance of getting out of here early but since you consider my class 'a load of crap', I foresee that it will take you until dawn, maybe longer."

"But I can't have detention tonight," Ginny blurted out. "Tonight's- Wait a minute" Could it be? Had she finally found a solution to her problems? It seemed almost too perfect. "Thank you, God! And I'm so sorry I ever doubted you." Ginny said looking towards the heavens, or where the heavens would've been if she wasn't inside the school dungeons. She was so excited, she completely missed the stares she was getting.

"Ms. Weasely, may ask why you're thanking God?" Snape said, more than a little confused by his student's behavior.

"You're right," Ginny said, positively beaming. "You're absolutely right, I should be thanking you, so thank you!" And with that, in a move she would later chalk up to temporary insanity, she hugged him. Virginia A. Weasely, a Gryffindor, hugged her teacher, the head of Slytherin, Severus Snape. The silence in the classroom was deafening.

"Ms. Weasely, do remove yourself from my person," Snape said as icily as he could mange which really wasn't that icy at all considering the fact that he was still dumbfounded.

Ginny instantly let go of him. "Sorry, I'm just so happy-"

"That I'm giving you a _detention_?" Snape asked just to make sure he was hearing right.

Ginny nodded vigorously. "And it's really going to take all night?" she asked, stars shining in her eyes.

"Oh for Merlin's-" Snape started to swear. Remembering he was in a classroom full of children he stopped himself. "Contrary to what I might have led you to believe, it won't take that long. You'll most likely be done by midnight."

It was then Ginny hit rock bottom. Remembering what Lavender had been telling her the night before about Slytherin parties not starting until midnight, Ginny began to panic. She seized the front of Snape's robes. "No, no my detention can't end at midnight! It can't!" She said shaking her head and because of the strong grip she had on Snape's robes, shaking him too. To both their surprises, she started to tear up. "I'll do anything, but please don't let my detention end!" she blubbered.

At this point, Severus Snape, who was known for his ability to never show any emotion except for hate and contempt and who was rarely shaken, lost his cool. "That's it, I'm taking you to the hospital wing." He said to the now sobbing girl. He was pretty certain that she must've been the unfortunate victim of a confounding charm. Or maybe somebody slipped her a potion that dulled her senses. Or maybe it was just that time- Snape stopped that train of thought before it even had a chance to leave the station. Whatever it was, it was more than Severus Snape could or was willing to handle. "Class dismissed. You, Gryffindor take her books to your Common Room. And you, Creevy come with me."

"I'm coming too," T.J said getting up from her seat, her face etched with concern for her best friend.

"Suit yourself," Snape said curtly. "Ms. Weasely, can you walk?" He said in a voice that was almost gentle, which was really a scary thought. He was going to have to give the entire class an impossibly hard surprise test and an extra load of homework to forget about this incident.

"W- walk?' Ginny hiccupped.

"Oh in the name of everything holy," Snape said loudly. "Creevy, carry her."

"What? I can't carry her!" Colin said. "She'd be too heavy."

"You think I'm fat?" Ginny asked, still crying. "He thinks I'm fat!"

"No, Ginny, he doesn't think you're fat." T.J soothed, shooting Colin a murderous look. "Tell her you don't think she's fat, Creevy." She commanded out of the corner of her mouth.

"I don't think you're fat," Colin repeated dutifully.

"You're lying. He's lying, isn't he? Do you think I'm fat?" Ginny asked Snape, sniffling.

In all his years of teaching, Snape couldn't remember the last time he'd been shocked speechless so badly. Finally, he just shook his head and deciding it was the best course of action or maybe just the easiest, he pulled out a mild sedative and gave it to her to drink. Surprisingly she didn't question him and drained the bottle dutifully. It knocked her out immediately.

"Thank God," Snape said, letting out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.

"I second that," Creevy said. "That was a whole new side of Ginny Weasely that I _never_ want to see again."

"She's had so much on her mind lately, I guess it just became too much." T.J said.

"No, this looks like the work of a confounding charm." Snape replied.

"What's that?" T.J asked curiously.

Snape sent her a withering look. "Do I look like your Charms Professor, Ms. Chickalini?" he asked.

"No, sir." T.J replied evenly. "Now, how are we getting Ginny to the Hospital Wing? Since I can't carry her, and Creevy refuses to, I guess you're going to have to, Professor." T.J said that last part with a bit of relish anticipating Snape's reaction.

"What?" Snape asked, paling considerably.

"Your student, your responsibility." T.J said sweetly.

"She's right, sir." Colin said daringly.

"Be quiet, Creevy," Snape said sharply. "I am trying to think. I suppose I could levitate her."

"Through the halls of Hogwarts? You do realize that we're talking stairs, corners, and low doorways. Not to mention, hundreds of students. It's too dangerous." T.J said, shaking her head.

"And the only other way is to carry her?" Snape asked, too shocked by the possibility that he would have to walk the halls of Hogwarts, carrying a student, looking all heroic and noble, to notice that he was having what could actually be called a conversation with one of his students and a Gryffindor to top that.

"Time's ticking, Professor." T.J said, barely concealing her smile which would show how amusing she was finding all this. "You don't want to be responsible for any long term damages do you?"

"Alright you've made your point." Snape said, picking up Ginny like she was a sack of potatoes. He strode purposefully out the door. In the process he managed to knock Ginny's head solidly across the doorway.

"I'm thinking levitating her might not have been such a bad idea." Colin said.

"Too late now. Let's just follow him to make sure he doesn't do much damage." T.J said, grabbing Colin's arm and heading out the door.

Luckily the hallways were relatively empty. The few students who were in the hallways stared avidly at the strange sight of Snape carrying one of his students but they immediately averted their eyes the minute he threatened them all with detention and fifty points deducted from their respective houses.

They made it to the Hospital Wing in record time. Of course Ginny suffered a few more bruises because of this but that really wasn't at the forefront of Snape's mind and T.J and Colin really couldn't do anything about it. They both winced as he unceremoniously dumped her in the nearest bed and she banged her shin.

"What did you do, Severus?" Madame Pomfrey asked the minute she laid eyes on them.

"_I _didn't do anything." Snape answered.

"You gave her a sedative." T.J said helpfully which earned her a glare from Snape who in turn got a glare from Madame Pomfrey.

"Why pray tell did you give her a sedative?" Madame Pomfrey asked. Without waiting for an answer, she began to lecture him. "You may mix my potions, Severus but that does not give you the authority to prescribe them to students."

"I know that, Poppy," Snape said annoyed. "She was becoming extremely hysterically and it was the only way to keep her from hurting herself or others."

"She wasn't going to hurt anybody." Colin said in Ginny's defense.

"I don't know, Creevy." T.J said. "She looked like she wanted to tear you in two when called her fat."

"I did not call her fat." Colin said, now defending himself.

"Oh yes you did." T.J replied.

"I said she was too heavy for me too carry which is the truth."

"In girl language, that was you calling her fat." T.J said. "Boy, are you in for it when she gets up."

Colin paled. Nobody liked to be on the receiving end of Ginny's temper and that included him. "Maybe I should get going," he suggested.

"You do that," T.J said, grinning as he left the room.

Madame Pomfrey cleared her throat. "This is a lovely conversation but I'd really like to treat my patient and I can't do that until somebody tells me what's wrong with her. And telling me she got hysterical is not telling me what's wrong with her, Severus." She said.

"Well,-" T.J began.

"She's confounded." Snape said, deciding at last.

"You mean she's been hit with the confounding charm?" Madame Pomfrey asked, checking Ginny's vitals.

"It appears that way." Snape said.

"What makes you say that?" Madame Pomfrey asked, taking Ginny's temperature.

"Well, her moods were all over the place. One minute she's angry, then she's happy, then she's sad then she's asking me if I think she's fat." Snape recounted, visibly shivering at that particular memory.

"Really?" Madame Pomfrey said, beginning to get an idea of what was going on. "Why don't you tell me what exactly happened?"

"She called my class 'a load of crap' so I gave her a detention." Snape said.

Madame Pomfrey shook her head. "What has the world come to? Punishing students for being honest." She said.

"I thought I was punishing her. However, you'd think I just told her she'd won a million galleons judging from her reaction." Snape said.

"She was happy?" Madame Pomfrey asked with a frown.

"She hugged me, Poppy." Snape said seriously.

Madame Pomfrey gasped. "You're joking," she said in a hushed voice.

"You have no idea how much I wish I was." Snape deadpanned. "Ask Chickalini over here if you don't believe me, she saw the whole thing."

"He's right," T.J nodded.

"Okay, that's a little too much even if she was PMSing," Madame Pomfrey mused out loud.

"She's not. That was two weeks ago." T.J reminded her. "You know when she sent Travis Sullivan in here for eating the last chocolate chip cookie at dinner."

"Oh yes, I do remember that," Madame Pomfrey said nodding.

"Must you discuss this in my presence?" Snape asked through clenched teeth.

"Grow up, Severus. You're too old to be acting childish about such matters," Madame Pomfrey said. "Wait a minute- how'd she get all these bruises?"

"Ask him," T.J said, jerking her thumb at Snape. "He's the one who tossed her around like a sack of potatoes."

Madame Pomfrey pursed her lips reprovingly. "Next time, be more careful." She chided.

"Next time?" Snape chocked out. "Next time? If there ever is anything that closely resembles a next time, I'm resigning."

"In that case, I'll make sure there's a next time," T.J muttered under her breath.

"Did you say something, Ms. Chickalini?" Snape asked, having heard her just fine.

"Who me?" T.J said with an innocent grin.

Before Snape could interrogate her further, Madame Pomfrey interrupted them. "what happened after she hugged you, Severus?" she asked.

"It got stranger and stranger. When I told her that her detention would most likely end at midnight, she burst into tears and began begging me not to end her detention."

"Hmm," Madame Pomfrey said. "It does sound like she was confounded."

"There's something else." Snape said gravely. "Before class, Ms. Weasely was talking about her wish to die. I believe she might've been contemplating suicide."

"That sounds extremely serious."

T.J had to roll her eyes. "C'mon, every normal teenager wants to die at least once day. It doesn't mean anything."

"Not alone," Madame Pomfrey agreed. "But with everything else that's going on-"

"With all due respect, Madame Pomfrey," T.J interrupted. "I don't think Ginny's confounded or anything else. She's just had a heavy load to carry these past couple of days and it just proved to be too much for her. If you can give me a couple minutes I'll explain everything and it will all make sense."

"How strong was the sedative you gave her?" Madame Pomfrey asked Snape.

"It was very mild."

Madame Pomfrey nodded. "So she should wake up in say, twenty minutes?" she asked.

"Maybe even less," Snape said.

"In that case, Ms. Chickalini, why don't we step into the hall?" Madame Pomfrey said.

"Are we done here?" Snape asked impatiently.

"Yes, Severus, you may go." Madame Pomfrey said, holding the door open for him then for T.J. Finally she exited the room, locking the door behind her.  
Fifteen minutes later, Ginny woke up with a throbbing headache, an aching hip, and a bruised shin.

"I was wondering when you were going to get up."

Ginny stiffened instinctively. She knew that voice.

"Harry, what are you doing here?" Ginny asked, sitting up. "What am I doing here? Where is here?"

Harry smiled amusedly. "I'm here because I sprained my thumb in Quidditch Practice this morning. Nobody's really sure why you're here yet. And as I'm sure you figured out, this is the Hospital Wing." He said.

Ginny shook her head. "Ugh, I had the weirdest dream, I was in Potions, and something happened and I hugged Snape. Then I just started crying and I couldn't stop and Colin called me fat, which is, really, not like Colin at all."

"Dream?" Harry repeated. "You mean- great, they left me alone here with you." He scanned the room.

"What are you looking for, Harry? And what do you mean they?" Ginny demanded suspiciously.

"Just making sure there aren't any vases in the room for you to break over my head." Harry said giving her a quick grin.

Since Ginny didn't quite know what to say to that, she decided to keep quiet.

Harry sighed. "Here's thing, Gin. The potions ordeal, the Snape thing, everything including the crying and the Colin calling you fat- well, actually he didn't call you fat exactly, he just said you were too heavy for him to carry."

"Hmm," Ginny sniffed. "Same thing."

Harry ran a hand through his raven locks. "Well, all of that and I'm sure there's more, it actually happened Gin." He said, inwardly flinching as he waited for her outburst.

Surprisingly one wasn't forthcoming. Ginny nodded slowly as she took it all in. She thought about freaking out but decided against it in the end; she'd had enough hysterics for one day. Besides it would take too much energy. And the fact that she'd managed to get out of the Malfoy dilemma did manage to sooth some of her ruffled feathers.

"So I really hugged Snape?" she said, shivering in disgust. "That is sick. I am going to have to burn these clothes."

"If it makes you feel any better, he feels the same way." Harry said trying to be reassuring.

"Oh no," Ginny groaned. "I can't believe I totally lost it in Potions. It's just what I needed to be labeled Hogwart's very own nutcase."

"No, no that goes to Tanner Woodson." Harry said, grinning. "You know, the Ravenclaw fifth year who goes around referring to himself in third person."

"Well, that's a relief." Ginny said, brightening considerably.

"But you do come pretty close," Harry couldn't resist saying.

"Oh stuff it, Potter," Ginny said, making a face.

They had a moment of peaceful silence. But of course that didn't last long.

"Ginny?" Harry began hesitantly. "There's something I want to tell you. See-"

Ginny groaned inwardly. For a minute she'd forgotten who she was talking to. "Harry, please don't go there. I mean we were actually having a conversation for once and you were being amusing- you know like it to be sometimes before we started dating and you got all weird - and I just forget that we have all this history. And said it before and I'm going to say it again, I don't want to date you, Harry. I like you, well at least I used to," Ginny paused. "But even then, save for back when I was eleven, I didn't like you like _that_."

"Wow," Harry let out a breath. "Okay. Well, first of all that wasn't what I was going to say."

That was embarrassing. "In that case scratch everything I just told you." Ginny said quickly.

"No, I'm glad you told me how you felt. Usually you're just yelling and throwing things." Harry said, softening the comment with a smile.

"I do that a lot, don't I?" Ginny said feeling a twinge of guilt.

"Is that a rhetorical question?" Harry asked in mock seriousness.

Impulsively, Ginny threw a pillow at him. "Oops." She said, remembering what they were talking about.

Harry laughed openly at her and Ginny joined him.

"What can I say?" Ginny said with a shrug. "It's the Irish in me."

"Does that excuse actually work?" Harry had to know.

"You'd be surprised," Ginny said with a grin.

They both laughed at that and had another moment of shared silence. "This is nice." Harry commented.

Ginny gave him a questioning look.

Harry gestured to themselves. "You know talking, laughing. That kind of stuff. I guess I ruined that all when we started dating. Looking back now, I can't believe I acted like such a wanker."

"Well, that you did." Ginny agreed. "But I think that I might've also had something to do with the whole ruining thing."

Harry nodded. "Want to hear the really strange part?" he said. "You were saying earlier that you like me but not in _that_ way and I completely agree. I know that's hard to believe after the crazy possessive way I acted when we dated- and no joke I still don't know why I acted like that- but it's true."

"Well," Ginny said not knowing what else to say. She was a bit shocked to tell the truth and secretly though she would never admit it a bit disappointed. There was something nice about knowing that there was somebody who was madly in love with you, even if you didn't like them back, especially considering that that person was Harry Potter. Draco Malfoy might've been Hogwart's Bad Boy Heartthrob but Harry Potter was Hogwart's Poster Boy of Perfection.

"Why don't we start over?" she suggested. "Be just friends for once. I mean we went through the best friend's little sister phase and the girlfriend phase, let's try being friends and see how it works out."

"That'd be cool," Harry said. "I'm not sure how badly my reputation will be damaged when it comes out that I'm friends with a nutcase……… but I'll manage."

"Ha ha. Ha. You're cracking me up." Ginny said dryly.

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Ginny called.

The door opened and Blaise Zabini stepped in the room. She was wearing her school uniform, Blaise style. Sans tie, skirt hiked up a couple of inches higher than was deemed decent, shirt buttoned strategically in ways meant to make boys drool, face made up in a way that made her looked good but didn't look like she was wearing make-up and it was all topped off with her bombshell blond hair. Ginny took a moment to envy her for that. If she tried anything like that with Ron and Hermione around they'd, well she wasn't sure what they'd do but it'd be drastic. She couldn't wait for her seventh year to come around, it would be the first time she'd be in school and not have to worry about her brothers reporting home to mom.

"Weasely, Potter," Blaise said with a nod. "How's it going?"

"It's going," Harry said with a shrug. "You?"

"It's going," Blaise repeated, her lips quirking up for a second. She nodded towards his splinted thumb. "Let me guess, Quidditch?"

"What else?" Harry said with a grin.

"Speaking of Quidditch," Blaise transitioned smoothly. "You seen Wood lately?"

"No, I heard he's back in London but I just haven't had the time to see him yet. Maybe over the weekend." He replied, rubbing the back of his neck.

"So Weasely," Blaise said, leaning against the door.

"Yeah, Zabini?" Ginny said, still amazed that Blaise and Harry had just had what was almost a conversation.

"Rumor has it you went completely around the bend in Potions this morning." Blaise said casually.

"Ack," Ginny said, resigned. "You mean it's already out?"

"Oh yeah, biggest talk around the school since you tried to bash in Potter's head here." Blaise said.

"I wasn't trying to bash in his head," Ginny muttered.

"Sure felt that way to me," Harry quipped.

Ginny shot him a murderous look. "Before I forget," Ginny said. "I can't make it tonight. I got detention with Snape." She resisted the urge to grin smugly. Well, okay she didn't resist it but it was only fair.

"Yeah that's what I want to talk to you about," Blaise said, examining her nails.

"Oh?" Ginny said, trying not to sound suspicious.

"I talked to Snape," Blaise said. "In light of what happened, he's willing to revoke your detention but he refuses to return the house points he took."

"He's willing to wha-?" Ginny asked faintly.

"Here's a note if you don't believe me," Blaise said handing her a crumpled piece of parchment.

Ginny scanned the parchment, her heart sinking as she recognized his unintelligible scrawl. "You are the bane of my existence." Ginny said looking Blaise square in the eye.

"I aim to please," Blaise said, standing up straight. "I'll see you at seven tonight. Be there." Her voice left no room for argument as she slammed the door behind her.

"That sneaky, conniving bitch." Ginny said angrily. "Oh god, I hate her."

"I thought you guys were friends," Harry said.

Ginny snorted. "Me and the Queen of the Dammed? Not likely. She only puts up with me because of Dom and the feeling's absolutely mutual."

"So what was that all about?" Harry asked curiously.

"Harry are you completely serious about this being friends thing?" Ginny asked. When he nodded, she said. "Then don't ask."

888888888

**A/N:** To those of you who are a bit confused by Harry's behavior, be patient, I still got some 'splainin to do. One more thing, when I wrote the last scene, the one with Blaise, I kinda saw sparks go off between her and Harry. Anybody else see it? Anybody else want to see it? Or should I stick with my original plan of pairing her with Wood? I'd have to admit it'd be extremely intriguing and maybe a bit challenging to write a relationship between Harry and Blaise but then they'd both become more major characters in the fic. Either way, how about I put it to a vote? If you review, please tell me what pairing you want to see. I hope you enjoyed this chappie, I had a heck of a lot of fun writing it. Now go click that little button at the bottom of page and tell me what you think! You know what I'm talking about!

-TDL

_Coming Soon…. Chapter Five: Rendezvous with the Dragon._


	5. Finding Your Inner Slut, Er Saint

**A/N: **Hey! Well, this took a little longer than I thought it would. Mostly because school started and at the same time we were moving into a new house. I hate moving but that's beside the point. Getting to the point, I'm definitely glad to see that people are still interested in this story, judging from the hits and reviews! THANK YOU! Second, pretty much everybody said they'd like to see Blaise/Harry which is major exciting and I'm really looking forward to writing that. Third, by now you've probably figured out (from the way I write and the phrases I use) that I'm American. Some of things I make the characters say probably aren't very in character since they're supposed to be British but I'm not really going to try and censor myself. You've been warned. Lastly, here's chapter five. As you can tell from the title it isn't _Rendezvous with the Dragon_ as I said it would be last time. That's what I was planning on but alas, my muse had other plans. Hope you like it anyway. Review please!

**Disclaimer:** HP Characters. Mine, no. J.K Rowling's, yes. How's that for a change?

888888888

Ginny Weasely was an avid list maker. Except for her red hair, it was, in her eyes, the only thing she'd inherited from her mother. Granted, the lists her mother made were usually grocery lists or something of that sort while Ginny's often read 10 reasons why so and so would make a good/bad boyfriend. Yet, it did her heart good to know that she at least had one thing in common with her mother. Besides that, Ginny usually found list making to be a great stress reliever, no need to mention the wonders it did for her overactive temper. At the moment she was working on a list entitled _101 Ways to Get Revenge on Blaise Zabini written by Virginia Weasely with valuable input from Teresa J. Chickalini._ Admittedly, this was probably the longest list Ginny had ever made but considering the topic at hand and the person in question she knew it would be a long time before she felt even remotely de-stressed.

"Quick, Gin, are you still working on that list?" T.J asked breathlessly, banging the door as she came rushing into the dorm room. Despite what the title might lead one to believe, she really hadn't been much help at all seeing as how she'd become bored senseless with the list and had disappeared even before Ginny hit number 90.

Ginny looked up from where she was still furiously scribbling although her hand had gone numb about half an hour ago. "What?" she asked, as if coming out of a trance.

"The Revenge on Zabini list." T.J said impatiently. "You still working on it?"

Ginny looked down at the parchment on her lap. "Looks that way," she said.

"Alright!" T.J whooped.

Ginny blinked. "What was that for?" she asked.

"Never mind that right now," T.J said hurriedly. "What number are you on?"

"I'm almost done," Ginny said somewhat surprised as she scanned the parchment.

"What number, Gin?"

"Number eleven," Ginny answered. "Why?"

Once again T.J ignored her. "Do you think you can come up with eleven more things in say, the next five minutes?"

"What for?" Ginny asked, confused.

"Just do it," T.J said hurriedly. Shutting her mouth, Ginny complied. She'd learned the hard way that when T.J was in one of her 'moods' the best way to handle her was to do as she said now and ask questions later. She was on number four when she got stuck.

"Okay, T.J problem," Ginny said. "What do you think is worst having to walk around school with hives all over your face for weeks or having the whole school think you have some kind of sexually transmitted disease?"

"Hives," T.J said immediately.

"Really?" Ginny questioned. "Cause I was thinking sexually transmitted disease."

"Ginny!" T.J wailed, looking at her watch.

"I'm done, I'm done," Ginny said hastily writing down the last four items on her list. She'd barely had the time to look at her list with satisfaction before T.J snatched from her and left the room. Ginny could hear her pounding down the stairs and debated whether or not she should go after her. In the end she decided against it. Knowing T.J she'd be back soon enough to explain it all. Ginny glanced at the watch that she kept on her nightstand. It was almost time for Blaise to come over. Funny how the thought didn't send her into a rage like it had for the most of the week. It was amazing how simply accepting her fate could make her feel so calm, so weightless and serene even somewhat sublime. She felt detached from herself and everything else as if she had left it all behind and was on some sort of higher plane looking down. She was making a great sacrifice on her own behalf for the good of the whole- okay that was a bit of a stretch.

At that moment T.J came bursting back into the room with a small sack in one hand. Without even looking in Ginny's direction, she plopped down on her bed and upturned the sack sending a barrage of coins spilling all over her bed.

Well, Ginny decided, that was one way to bring her rushing back to reality. "What are you doing, T.J?" she asked carefully, trying to hold on to the calm she could feel raveling away from her.

"Shhh," T.J shushed her. "You'll ruin my concentration."

Ginny stood up and made her way over to T.J's bed where she sat on top of the coins.

"Ginny, move!" T.J told her.

Ginny shook her head stubbornly. "Not until you tell me what's going on," she replied.

T.J sighed. Before she could start, Ginny interrupted her with another question.

"Where's my parchment?" she asked looking around.

T.J grimaced. "Which one do you want me to start with?" she asked.

"Does it matter?" Ginny asked suspiciously. T.J might be her best friend but there were times when there was no telling what was going on in that girl's mind.

"Not really seeing as how either one of them will eventually lead to the other."

"In that case, start with the parchment," Ginny said.

T.J paused to think about how she would word what she was about to say. "At this exact second I can honestly say I have no idea. Last I knew, it was circulating around the Gryffindor Common Room like wildfire. So much so, I wouldn't be surprised if it's already made it's way to the other houses." She said.

Ginny mulled over what T.J had just told her.

"Look on the bright side," T.J began, taking Ginny's silence for anger. "The list is a huge hit. Everybody's raving about what a work of genius it is. You're going to be the talk of the school for a long time to come."

"Teej, I've been the talk of the school more in this past week alone than in the entire past five years put together." Ginny replied, exasperated. "Forgive me if that thought doesn't make me feel all warm and cuddly inside. Now just skip everything and get to the part where you tell me what's going on."

"Are you mad?" T.J asked.

"The thing is, I've discovered this new methodology where I consider if something's worth getting mad about before I actually get mad; and on scale with the things that have been happening and, bearing in mind I'm about to go to Malfoy's birthday party, things that surely will happen, I'm going to let this one go." Ginny finished.

"That's very mature of you. I didn't really get half of what you just said but it sounded mature." T.J said. At Ginny's pointed look she sighed. "Well, remember how left the first time to go down to the Common Room. I was down there for a while before I was ambushed by Seamus, who by the way, is definitely all ga-ga over you."

"No he's not," Ginny said mildly.

"Yes he is," T.J disagreed. "He wanted to know where you were. I told him you were upstairs. He wanted to know what you were doing. I said you were making a list. He wanted to know how long it would be before you came down. I said-"

"Enough, enough," Ginny said. "Forget the he said, she said for one minute. Where's this all going?"

"You ruin all my fun," T.J huffed. "Basically, he didn't believe the fact that you of all people were actually sitting down, making a list and were not going to budge until you were done."

"And what's that supposed to mean?" It was Ginny's turn to huff.

"Well the gist of it was that you didn't have it in you to actually sit down and not only make a list but also finish it. So I bet him five galleons that you would finish the list. He was about to take me on when Dean, who's never too far from Seamus, butted in and told him not to take the bet since that you probably _would_ finish the list."

Ginny smiled approvingly.

"In about five years from now," T.J concluded.

The smile slipped from Ginny's face.

"So I bet _him_ five galleons that you would be done before the clock hit seven. Since at that time it was a quarter to seven and I'd let it slip that you'd started at number 101, he took me up on it. Seeing that, Seamus of course also wanted in. They started bragging about how it was the easiest five galleon's they've ever made and some other people over heard and figuratively speaking wanted a piece of the pie. Before I knew, most of the people in the Gryffindor Common Room were in on the deal."

"No," Ginny said disbelievingly.

"Yes," T.J responded. "I hate to be the one to tell you this Gin, but your fellow Gryffindorians don't have much faith in you."

"You don't have to say it so gleefully," Ginny muttered darkly figuring out for herself how the rest of the story went.

"Oh yes I do, because this time it worked in my, or should I say our, advantage." T.J said. "You finished the list a full two minutes before seven. I showed them it and thanks to their untrusting hearts we are now fifty-four galleons richer."

"We?" Ginny said. Then the number T.J had just quoted sunk in. "Fifty-four?"

"After all you contributed, you really think I wouldn't split it with you?" T.J grinned broadly. "And yes, fifty-four, more or less. I would've been able to say for sure if a certain somebody had let me finish counting."

"Our friendship is a beautiful thing," Ginny said, slowly starting to smile as she stared at the coins littering the bed.

"You better believe it, sister." T.J returned with her own smile.

There came a low whistle from the door. Ginny and T.J turned around to find Blaise leaning against the doorframe.

"Call it an educated guess, but does that have something to do with the snickers and the heated whispers about some list I was greeted with downstairs?" Blaise asked. "Either that or you two robbed Blakely." Blakely was a Ravenclaw fifth year and his dad was in the oiling business. He was easily one of the richest kids at school and it was rumored that he slept with a bag of gold under his pillow.

"Do you really want to know?" Ginny asked.

"No," Blaise replied frankly. "Just working on my small talk."

"That's what I thought," Ginny replied. Gesturing to the small trunk Blaise had brought with her, she asked. "Planning on moving in with us, Zabini?"

"Hardly, Weasely." Blaise replied, closing the open door with her foot. "I just wasn't sure exactly what I would need to get you ready for tonight."

"Is there some sort of veiled insult in that sentence?" Ginny wanted to know.

"Only if you're willing to look for one." Came Blaise's vauge reply.

"Nah, not this time," Ginny decided.

"Your call," Blaise said. She hefted the trunk onto the nearest bed. "Here's the thing, Weasely, not only do I have to get you ready. I have to get myself ready, then I have to get back to the Room of Requirement and make sure everything is running smoothly in there. And all of this needs to be done in the next forty five minutes. I get the fact that you don't want to do this. You get the fact that you have no choice so just keep your yap shut the whole time and this will be so much less painless for both me and you."

T.J applauded when Blaise was done with her little speech. "That was nicely done. Very diplomatic, considering the tone of your voice suggests you'd like to do a full body bind charm on her and just be over with it all." She said. " You know, I originally planned to stick around to make sure Ginny didn't try to maim you or worse and then skip the country under an assumed name that nobody would guess like, Rose Lynde or Candy Appleton,"

Ginny interrupted T.J's little fantasy with a loud hrumph. "I would not maim Zabini. The thought never even crossed my mind." Liar. She'd only thought about it oh say, fifty times since Blaise had entered the room. "And I was to skip the country under an assumed name, I would never pick something as insipid as the names you suggested."

"Well what would you pick?" T.J asked.

Ginny thought about it. "I dunno. Definitely not something girly."

"What's wrong with girly?" T.J said.

"Virginia is girly enough thank you. I want something strong. Maybe Max Ryder. Like that girl in that muggle book-"

Blaise put two fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle making them both jump. "Hearing the way you two blather, it's a damn wonder you haven't been put in the psychiatric ward of St. Mungo's yet." Blaise said, slowly shaking her head. "Chickalini you were trying to say something about leaving?" it was more of an order than a question.

T.J, however, appeared unaffected. "Was I?" She pondered over her earlier rant. "Oh yeah, I'm going to go get ready down the hall with Parvati and Lavender since all my things are in they're room anyway. We'll stop by you when we're done, kay?"

"Not okay. You'll see her at the party and not a second before that," Blaise answered for Ginny. She opened the door. "Bye."

"Pushy, aren't you?" T.J commented. Despite Blaise's somewhat twisted friendship- if one could call it that- with Ginny, she and T.J hadn't really spent much time around each other.

"It's her middle name," Ginny said dryly. "Right after cold-hearted, manipulative, and royal bitch."

"It beats whiny, mouthy brat, stark raving mad and other lovely adjectives that come mind where you're concerned." Blaise shot back but it wasn't with any real heat. T.J was a naturally curious person and she would've more than loved to study the dynamics of Blaise and Ginny's relationship but since the former had made it very clear she wanted her out that would have to wait for another day.

"Finally," Blaise muttered when T.J left the room. She turned to Ginny. "I assume you've already done the basics- shower, shave?"

"Is that a rhetorical question?" Ginny asked back.

"I'll take that as a yes," Blaise sighed. She took her wand out. "We'll start with your hair. Let it loose."

Ginny yanked out the tie that was keeping her hair in a messy bun.

"Hmm," Blaise said studying her hair.

"What's that mean?" Ginny said looking at the wand uneasily. "What are you going to do to my hair? You can't cut it. I spent my entire life growing it so there's no way-"

"Shut the bloody hell up, Weasely. I don't want to cut your hair, long hair is in these days."

Ginny started to let out a sigh of relief.

"But I'm definitely going to have to change the color," Blaise continued and just like that Ginny stopped breathing again.

"Change? Color?" she squeaked.

"I'll try to keep it as natural looking as I can, of course but that hideous orange red color has to go. So you have two choices. You can either go lighter to a more strawberry blonde shade or go darker like deep auburn but with a lot more red than brown."

Ginny was still stuck on the words hideous orange red.

"While we're young, Weasely," Blaise said tapping her foot in an edgy manner. "Or else I'll just change my mind about the natural thing and turn you're hair blue."

That seemed to snap Ginny out of it. "You wouldn't dare!" she gasped.

"The way I'm feeling right now, there's not a whole lot I wouldn't dare." Blaise said sounding like she meant every word. "What's it going to be?"

"Darker," Ginny said immediately only because she couldn't imagine herself as any shade of blonde.

"Alright," With an intense look of concentration, Blaise raised her wand and muttered an incantation. For a couple of seconds, Ginny's whole scalp seemed to tingle.

"Hmm," Blaise said signaling she was done. "Not exactly what I was expecting."

"What?" Ginny yelped, standing up so she could go to the bathroom and look for herself.

Blaise pushed her back done rather rudely. "Settle down. I said it wasn't what I was expecting. I didn't say it was bad. Quite the opposite. It's one helluva an improvement."

"Just for the record, I don't trust you," Ginny said still apprehensive but she remained seated.

"Just for the record, I don't care," Blaise replied. "You don't wear your hair down much do you?"

Silently Ginny shook her head.

"Then you're definitely going to leave it down tonight." Blaise decided. "Which is great cos that means I won't have to do anything really fancy with your hair. But I'll add a few curls here and there to make it look like I have."

"News flash, Zabini," Ginny said. "I don't wear my hair down because the minute I come anywhere near a drop of water- sweat included- it frizzes like crazy."

"Give me a second," Blaise said, opening her trunk and pulling out a small bottle. "Anti-frizz spray. The solution to all of your problems. At least the hairy ones."

"Did you get that a Madame Labelle's Magical Beauty Boutique?" Ginny asked naming a shop in Hogsmeade.

Blaise shook her head. "Believe or not, it's a muggle product."

Ginny looked at Blaise with open surprise.

"What?" Blaise said. "Just because I don't like to mingle with muggles doesn't mean I don't appreciate some of their more ingenious inventions. And this is one of them."

"How does it work?" Ginny asked curiously.

"I push this end and it comes out of this end," Blaise said gesturing to the nozzle. "And you stay frizz free for up to twelve hours. Plus, it gives you that freshly washed shine."

"My hair is freshly washed," Ginny pouted.

Blaise ignored her and got to work on applying the anti-frizz. "Time to start straightening your hair," she said when she was done. "Since I've yet to figure out an incantation that will magically do that, we're going to have to this the old fashioned way."

"Well, don't let me stop you," Ginny said sarcastically.

Once again her words feel on deaf ears as Blaise started doing her hair. The old fashioned way ended up taking longer than Blaise had expected so they were running a little behind schedule.

"Make-up, make-up," Blaise muttered to herself as she haphazardly started pulling out tubes and little bottles. She stopped suddenly and whirled around to face Ginny. "Look, how about you put on your on make-up so I can start getting myself ready? You can handle that, can't you?"

"Stop treating me like I'm four, Zabini," Ginny said crossly. "Of course I can do my own make-up."

"Start with foundation to cover up those freckles. Then go over with a light blusher to give your face some color but use this blusher for your cheekbones, it's a bit darker. Use this gloss for your lips," Blaise instructed hurriedly.

"It's clear," Ginny broke in.

"It's nude," Blaise said without missing a beat. "Which works since the central focus is going to be on your eyes. Mascara, eye liner- smudge it a bit so you can get that smoky look-, gold eye shadow to bring out the amber flecks in your eyes, and- eyebrows," she said suddenly.

"Huh?" Ginny said.

"I can't believe I totally forget about the eyebrows," Blaise said, disgusted with herself.

"What about my eyebrows?" Ginny said suspiciously.

"First of all they don't match your hair," Blaise said. "I'll fix that in a second- Where the hell is my wand!" That last bit was more of a shout. Blaise started rummaging around the bed and finally found her wand under a jumble of make-up. "Come here."

"Zabini, if you think for one second that I'm going to go anywhere near you and your wand when you have yourself worked up in a lather – and might I point out that you never get worked up in a lather- then you are farther gone then I thought." Ginny said distinctly.

Blaise let out a frustrated sound. The weasel was right. She was losing control of herself, mostly because she was so nervous about seeing Oliver which was number uno on tonight's agenda, partly because she was still unsure about how Draco would take the plan once he found out. And if there were two things Blaise hated it was being unsure and nervous. They were both ugly, bothersome emotions she could really do without.

"What's going on, Blaise?" Ginny said, shaking Blaise out of her muddled thoughts. The fact that Weasely had used her first name showed how uncharacteristic she had been acting.

"Nothing," Blaise said, snapping out of it. "I've just got a lot on my mind."

"Like what?" Ginny persisted.

"Nothing I feel like telling you," Blaise said harshly.

"It's just a question," Ginny said, a little taken aback. "Don't bite my head off for it."

Blaise sighed. She seemed to be doing that a lot tonight. Of course, she did a lot anytime she was around Ginny. "Look, I know you're trying to be helpful and all but right now the only thing that you can do that might help me is to finish getting yourself ready so we can both be out of here." She said.

Ginny bit her tongue before she could point out that she'd merely been stalling instead of really concerned over Blaise's welfare. She started to make her way to the bathroom with the make-up, when Blaise recalled she'd yet to fix her eyebrows. That quickly got that out of the way and Ginny finally made it to the bathroom where any thoughts of make-up quickly left her mind as she got her first look at her new hairstyle. Ginny couldn't help it, she let out a sort of strangled scream.

"You'll get used to it," Blaise called, correctly guessing what it was that was making Ginny scream.

"My-my-hair," Ginny stammered as she stared in the mirror. She cautiously raised one hand to pat the top of her head and her reflection in the mirror did the same. She'd look in this mirror a hundred thousand times, at least half of the time she'd been doing her hair but back then her hair had looked nothing like this. _She_ had looked nothing like this.

"Try to look at it objectively," Blaise called again hearing no movements coming from the bathroom.

Right. Objectively. Well, Ginny thought, peering at herself, it was certainly a change. Her hair was now auburn instead of ginger. Actually it was too red to be called auburn but Ginny didn't know what else to call it, having never seen this shade of red before. Maybe burgundy or scarlet but that didn't sound right either. It wasn't exactly a bad change, she mused, but it was just so different. Her mother- oh god her mother, Ginny let out another strangled groan.

"Let's not think about that right now, Ginny," she advised herself. "Think happy thoughts. Think positive thoughts." She wracked her brain for something positive about her hair. She finally settled on the fact that it make her look older. More chic, T.J would absolutely love it. That last thought made her grin and did wonders to calm her down.

"You done with the make-up yet, Weasely?" Blaise said from the other side of the door.

"Almost," Ginny replied. Since she'd been in the bathroom for nearly ten minutes and all she'd done was stare at herself she felt a little guilty for that lie. Then she immediately felt stupid for feeling guilty since the only reason she was supposed to be putting on her make-up was because Blaise was blackmailing her into going to the party. For the love of Dumbledore, she was the injured party here! And it wouldn't do anybody good, namely herself, if she forgot that. That little tirade aside, Ginny started to carefully apply her make-up. She was just putting on the finishing touches when Blaise began to bang on the door.

"Weasely!" She all but barked.

Ginny hurriedly wrenched the door open. "I'm done, I'm-" She paused in mid sentence as she got a good look at Blaise. In the time it had taken her to do her make-up, Blaise had managed to do both her make-up and her hair and had even donned on her choice outfit of the evening. She was all decked out in white; her calf length, spaghetti strapped dress, her stiletto heels, even the few items of jewelry she was wearing, all of it was white. Coupled with the fat ringlets she'd curled her hair into- a look that would've probably never worked on anybody else- and the minimal make-up, the effect was stunning. It gave her a deceivingly innocent and sweet air but at the same it oozed sexiness.

"That's the reason why girls like me hate girls like you, Zabini," Ginny said, not even bothering to hide her feelings of envy. "How the heck are we supposed to snag any guy with you looking like that?"

"Oh yeah?" Blaise said cocking an eyebrow. "Well, tonight I have feeling you're going to be one of the girls that are hated instead of the ones doing the hating. Wait till you see your dress." With that she nodded towards the bed.

Curiously Ginny headed over to see what Blaise had selected for her to wear. "Where is it?" she asked.

Blaise rolled her eyes, thinking that Ginny was being sarcastic. "Just put on, Weasely," she said, picking it up.

Ginny's eyes darted from Blaise's eyes to the wisp of black material she held in her hand. "_That_ is not a dress, Zabini." It was too small to be a dress. She'd seen it lying on the bed but had dismissed it for that very purpose.

"Yes it is," Blaise said calmly handing it to Ginny.

Ginny let it dangle from her forefinger and thumb. "How does it even go on?" she said, eyeing it with an appalled sort of fascination.

"It's a halter," Blaise explained with exaggerated patience. "Put on the dress and then tie those two straps at the back of your neck."

"I'm not wearing this," Ginny made up her mind and handed it back to Blaise.

"Stop being a prude, Weasely." Blaise snapped. "You're sixteen not sixty."

"I'm not a prude!"

"Could've fooled me," Blaise snorted.

She was not a prude, Ginny assured herself. Refusing to wear a barely there dress did not make her a prude. She'd just rather not have to explain why she was walking around school nearly naked to Ron. Ginny clasped her hand over her mouth in horror. Ron! That was the best her mind could come up with? All she had done was try and think of a good reason why she shouldn't wear the dress and what had she gotten in return? Ron. Ron! Her older, meddling, annoying brother.

"That's it, give me the dress," Ginny said, already snatching it out of Blaise's hands. She marched into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. Some of her bravado wavered as she stripped of her jeans and shirt and started to pull on the dress but she forced any thoughts of uncertainty out of her mind. They came flooding back in moments later when she discovered that the dress had a very low back and the ties- though they looked wide- did nothing to cover most of her shoulders.

"Um, Zabini," Ginny called through the door. "There's something wrong with this dress." ?" Blaise called back.

"Well, the thing is," Ginny hedged. "My bra-"

"Take it off," Blaise interrupted.

"Excuse me?" Ginny gaped at the oak door.

"Your bra, take it off. The dress is meant to be worn without one."

"I can't go braless!"

"Do we have to have this conversation, Weasely?"

"Ooh, I'm going to regret this so much," Ginny muttered as she wiggled out of her bra. With a few more wiggles and tugs, Ginny was as certain as one could be in this situation that everything was where it was supposed to be. She tried to get a good look at herself in the mirror but couldn't see below her shoulders. Mustering all her courage, she yanked open the door and walked out with a scowl.

Blaise looked at her appraisingly and then motioned for her to turn around. Ginny turned.

"Oh yeah," Blaise said slowly starting to smile. "Am I good or am I good? That dress is killer on you."

"Really?" Ginny walked over to the full length mirror to see for herself. "Holy Helga Hufflepuff," she gasped. "That is not me."

"That's you," Blaise said.

For the second time in under thirty minutes, Ginny stared at herself speechlessly in the mirror. On her, the dress looked even skimpier then when she'd held it in her hand. Except for the two scraps that hardly covered her breasts and merged into the halter ties, the top of the dress was practically nonexistent until a couple of inches above her navel. The bodice of the dress was extremely fitted, allowing for one of those rare flashes where she appreciated her willowy figure instead of bemoaned it. From there the dress flared into a twirly little skirt. Ginny wasn't even sure if it could be called a skirt. True to the skimpiness of the dress, the dress ended just below her bottom.

"If I bend over everybody's going to see my underwear," Ginny realized.

"Then you better make sure you're wearing a nice pair of panties," Blaise responded.

"Zabini!" Ginny wailed. She was getting quite good at wailing. Frivolously, she wondered if somewhere in the world there was such a thing as wailing contests, kind of like yodeling contests. "Do something!"

"Alright, alright," Blaise said. She pointed her wand and lengthened the dress by two inches. "That's as long as it's going to get. Happy?"

"Ever since you got me in this mess, I can't remember exactly what happiness is," Ginny remarked. Yet it was an improvement of sorts. The dress no longer looked so skimpy and it even looked sort of sexy. Now that she didn't have to worry so much about mooning the people, she could appreciate the marvels the dress did for her legs.

"Try on the heels I brought so we can finally go."

"You brought heels?" Ginny asked looking at her in dismay. "I hate heels. It's not like I need them anyway. I'm tall enough already."

"You're what 5'7?" Blaise surveyed. "That's a good five inches shorter than Dragon."

"Five inches is not that much," Ginny said dismissively.

"When's the last time you stood toe to toe with Draco?" Blaise countered.

"Not since our last shouting match before he left," Ginny was forced to admit.

"Well a lot's changed since then, including his height. Wouldn't you at least like to be semi eye to eye for your next shouting match?" Blaise said reasonably.

She had a point, Ginny agreed silently. "Fine," she sighed. "I want the lowest heel you've got."

"Fine," Blaise echoed. She gave her a pair of black open toe slide-ons with a low wedge heel. She waited until Ginny had put them on then said, "Now can we go?"

"You know," Ginny said giving herself the once over in the mirror. "I really don't think I can walk out of here looking like this."

Blaise resisted the urge to throttle the girl, but just barely. "You are enough to make even the most sainted of saints want to commit murder," she said.

"I hope you're not suggesting that you're a saint because we both know that's not true." Ginny replied.

"Considering the fact that I'm refraining from cursing you into oblivion when you've got coming, I'm thinking that I might just qualify for sainthood."

"I've got it coming?" Ginny whirled around. "Excuse me? None of this would be happening if it wasn't for you. And when I say this, I'm including every crazy thing that has happened since you blackmailed me into going to this stupid party and I _still _don't even know why. And yet, keyword being yet here, I haven't done a single thing to harm a hair on your head. So if anybody in this room qualifies for sainthood it's me."

"How do you do that?" Blaise asked, shaking her head.

"Do what?" Ginny asked.

"Manage to get completely off topic and take everyone with you." Blaise said.

"You started it," Ginny accused.

"Let's not get caught up in that," Blaise said, trying her best to sound levelheaded. "Just explain to me why you're deciding to not wear what you're wearing now, when you know there's no time to get you into something else? Or was that your plan all along?" She added suspiciously as the thought hit her. "Well you can just forget it. I'm giving you exactly five seconds to get out the door or I'm calling-"

"That's not what I'm saying," Ginny interrupted, thinking she'd pushed Blaise far enough for one day. "It's just that Ron will most likely be down in the Common Room and if he gets a glimpse of me, not only am I not going to the party, he'll probably owl my mother and I'm going be headed to the nearest convent faster than you can say 'Bottoms Up'. You get what I'm saying?"

Blaise groaned. She got what Ginny was saying alright, she just couldn't think of a way to solve this latest problem. "What do you suggest? You go out the window?"

"Not in this dress," Ginny replied. "But I have an idea. Harry."

"Potter?" Blaise questioned.

"Do you know another Harry?"

"As a matter of fact, I do but that's neither here nor there." Blaise answered. "How's Potter going solve this?"

"Not him," Ginny said. "His invisibility cloak."

"Potter has an invisibility cloak?" Blaise was mildly impressed. Okay, a lot impressed.

"Since his first year," Ginny answered. "Go up to the seventh year boys' dorm and tell him I need it. And before you ask, I know for a fact that he's in his room since he has to study for that Potions exam he's taking on Monday."

"Back up for a second," Blaise said. "Why do I have to- right," she said as Ginny gave her a pointed look.

"I'm sorry. Do you see anybody else in the room?" Ginny added for emphasis.

"And what makes you think he's going to be so willing to just hand it over to me?" Blaise countered.

"Tell him I said it's for the sake of our newfound friendship," Ginny said shamelessly.

"Your- I'm not going to ask." Blaise said. "Give me five minutes."

And with that Blaise left the room. Mindless of the curious stares she was getting and the hush that fell over the Common Room the minute she walked in, she strode purposefully (as purposefully as one could stride in stilettos) to the stairs that led to the boys' dorms. She hurried up the stairs only to realize when she got to the landing that she had no idea which door led to the seventh year boys' dorm.

"Hey," Blaise said as she spotted a boy peering out of one of the doorways. "Which one is the seventh years'?"

She looked so formidable that he immediately pointed to the room furthest down the hall. Without a second glance at the kid, she walked to the room at the end of the hall and rapped loudly. She was getting ready to knock again when the door flew open and Blaise found herself face to face with an extremely pissed off Potter. Something inside her fluttered once, twice and then settled just like it had this afternoon in the Hospital Wing.

"What is it _this_ time?" he bellowed before he noticed who was at the door. "Blaise." He wore a look of complete and utter shock.

Hearing him use her first name gave rise to another flutter. Rattled by all the flutters, Blaise immediately reverted to her old habit; she hid herself behind a façade of nonchalance and aloofness. Plastering a devil may care smile on her face she said, "I know what you're thinking, twice in one day. I must be stalking you."

Apparently Harry was still caught off guard. "Uh, no, never crossed my mind," He walked inside the room and towards his bedside table where he grabbed his glasses and put them on. Blaise resisted the urge to tell him to take them off or worse take them off herself.

Disgusted with herself and her thoughts, she shook her head. "Really? What were you thinking?" she asked causally following him into the room.

"Mostly that it was a damn shame that it wasn't either Seamus or Dean so I could make good on my promise and hex them." He flashed her a humorless grin.

"Feeling murderous, are we?" Blaise said returning his smile.

Harry raked a hand through his untidy raven locks. "You have no idea," he said with a sigh.

"Potions does that to a lot of people," Blaise commented.

"Tell me about it," Harry agreed. "Wait- how did you know-"

"That you're studying for Potions?" Blaise finished. "Weasely told me."

Harry nodded. "Right, the whole hush-hush meeting you two were supposed to be having tonight."

"It's not hush-hush, she's just paranoid," Blaise gave a small grin to soften the remark. "So what exactly are you studying in Potions?" she said effectively changing the subject.

Harry looked at the parchment in his hand with equal parts confusion and disgust. "I'm supposed to be memorizing the names _and_ ingredients of the eight-six manmade antidotes for most animal poisons."

"It's not so bad," Blaise said. "It's not," she added when Harry gave her a disbelieving look. "All you have to do is to figure out a way to organize all the information so that it makes sense and is easy to remember. Here try this," She took the parchment from him and picking up the quill on the bed, she proceeded to explain the material to him.

"That actually makes sense," Harry said when she was finished, amazed. "I take it you're one of the few people Potions doesn't drive up the wall?"

Blaise shook her head. "It's my best subject," she said honestly. "Now Trafig, that's a completely different story."

Harry laughed. "Believe it or not, that's my best subject. Well after, DADA," he said. "You want to make a deal of sorts?"

For the life of her, Blaise couldn't tell what made her ask and flirtatiously too, "What kind of deal?" It certainly wasn't her common sense because at the moment, that was telling her to run away, far far away before she did something completely stupid.

Encouraged, Harry smiled and said, "How about you help me with Potions and I help you with Trafig?" he said.

Blaise almost said yes, almost. It was the first thought that entered her mind. For reasons unknown to her, the thought of spending time with Potter was entirely too appealing. It wasn't like they'd ever actually spent time together in the past. In fact except for greetings and nods here and there, the last time they'd probably spoken, not including this afternoon was- well, she couldn't remember when but that just went to show that it was definitely was a heck of a long time ago. Then her brain started to function again and the ramifications of saying yes flooded her mind.

"Um, I can't. Weasely and I are going out tonight-" She began to ramble.

"Blaise," Harry said amusedly, stopping her. "I don't mean right now. You don't even have to answer right now. I dunno, think of it as food for thought or something."

If that was supposed to reassure her, it didn't. Far from it. Putting it that way suggested that he was talking about more than just being study buddies.

"So what did you come up here for in the first place?" Harry asked, noticing her discomfort with the subject at hand.

Blaise brightened considerably. That, at least, was a safe topic. "Your invisibility cloak." She said.

"My what?" Harry asked, once again caught off guard.

"Your cloak. You do have one, right?" She peered at him a bit skeptically.

"Yes, I do. I'm just surprised that you know that I have one," he replied.

"Don't worry, it's not public knowledge or anything." Blaise assured him. "Weasely told me. In fact, she's the one who wants it."

"Did she tell you why?" Harry asked, confused. Unlike Ron, Ginny never asked to use his cloak so the fact that she was asking for it now, through Blaise Zabini of all people, left him feeling a bit concerned.

"Nope," Blaise left it at that.

"But you know why," his eyes narrowed.

"I'm assuming it's because she doesn't want to be seen," Blaise answered vaguely.

Harry muttered something that sounded suspiciously like 'smart aleck'. "Just tell me she's not planning to do something illegal or dangerous." He said.

"Sorry, no can do," Blaise said.

"Why?"

"This is Weasely we're talking about here," Blaise answered. "Since when does anybody ever know what she's planning?"

"Why do you do that?" Harry asked abruptly looking annoyed.

"Do what?" Blaise asked, baffled by his sudden change in topic and mood.

"Call Ginny by her last name when you guys have been friends for years," he said. When she opened her mouth to interrupt he added, "I know, I know you're not really friends. But you spend time together and seem to know each other pretty well and in my book that's friendship. So why do you insist on pretending that that friendship doesn't exist?"

That certainly left Blaise speechless. "That's not really your business, is it?" Blaise she said finally and maybe just a little coldly.

It was Harry's turn to be quiet. "No. no it's not," he sighed heavily. "Thanks for reminding me that."

Not knowing what to reply to that Blaise kept silent.

Harry turned to rummage through his trunk. "Here's the cloak," he said practically shoving it in her hands. Blaise started towards the door but Harry being ever the gentlemen beat her to it. He opened the door for her, "See you around, Zabini."

The use of her last name hung heavy in the air with some unknown significance. It was as if he was shutting an invisible door she hadn't even been aware was open. Feeling hollow, she replied, "See you around, Potter,"

It was for the best, Blaise tried to convince herself as she made her way down the stairs. She still wasn't entirely sure what had occurred between them but she was glad it was over, whatever it was. Because even though she'd never admit aloud, being around him stirred emotions that were better left unstirred. Made her think of things she'd rather not think about. Brought out things in her that she'd thought she'd gotten rid of long ago. And that was the thought that scared her most.

888888888

**A/N:** And that was the end of chapter five. A little bit dramatic, a little bit angsty and not as much humor as the last but I wrote what I felt was necessary. And I know, we still haven't met the much famed Dragon but I promise you that's the first thing you're going to get in Chapter Six. On the bright side of things, I managed to get in a little more Blaise/Harry interaction and hopefully a little more insight into the puzzle that's known as Blaise Zabini. Apparently our girl's not as ice cool as she pretends to be. Wouldn't the world be surprised to learn that there are actually some things out there that turn the gorgeous, confident and at times highfaluting Blaise Zabini into a confused puddle of uncertainties? And that Harry Potter, Hogwart's Golden Boy, is number one on that particular list? Tell me what you think! As always any type of feedback is welcome!

Till Next Time,

-TDL


	6. Rendezvous with the Dragon

**A/N: **And finally _Rendezvous with the Dragon_ is here! Thanks to everybody who reviewed the last chapter. I hope this chapter and Draco (whom we're finally meeting) live up to your expectations (Actually in Draco's case, I hope I manage to throw you a few unexpected curves **grins cheekily**). That's all for now, as always REVIEW! Bona Appetite!

888888888

Draco Malfoy, a.ka the Dragon, Captain of Slytherin's Quidditch team, Head Boy (nobody, including the Dragon himself, was still sure how that happened) and number one on Hogwart's Most Beautiful People list for the past two years, was bored.

Senseless.

Mind you this wasn't an ordinary 'I've been playing chess for three hours straight, now what?' bored (he liked chess). No, it was more of a 'I can't believe that I have to sit here and listen to Granger prattle about the rights of house elves and remodeling the sewer system so it doesn't empty into the Great Lake' bored. Since she was Head Girl, this occurred a couple of times every month. And it was a couple of times too many. Honestly, it was almost enough to bring a grown dragon to tears. But at the moment he wasn't sitting in a meeting in the Head Tower with Granger. Far from it. He was in the Room of Requirement, which had been tastefully decorated to resemble the latest London club scene complete with the smoke screen, bubbles and DJ stand, attending a party that had already been dubbed the party of the year and was bound to go down in Hogwart's history. The room was chock full of people, some of which he'd never met in life, most of which he'd met but didn't see a point in remembering and a few that he could call acquaintances. From the looks of things, everybody seemed to be having the time of their life. Except for him, Draco thought moodily. And Nott, he added as an afterthought. He'd long given up on trying to figure out why Nott was following him around purposelessly instead of mingling with the other party-goers.

Draco turned to Nott who sitting next to him on the plushy lounge sofa. "Remind me again what I'm doing here."

Nott merely raised an eyebrow, a technique Draco was sure he practiced every day in front of the mirror. He could picture it perfectly. Raise right eyebrow ten times. A one and a two and a three-. Just then, a girl appeared out of nowhere and hurled herself into his lap effectively ending his mental image of Nott's eyebrow exercises. She was also effectively ending his breathing and crushing his windpipe since she had her arms wrapped around his neck tight.

"DRACO! DRAGON! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" she shouted though there really was no need seeing as how her mouth was right next to his ear. Draco winced as he added his hearing to the growing list of things this bint had destroyed. If he wasn't careful, she'd be the death of him.

Before he could do anything, Nott was pulling the girl off him and instructing her to leave the present she carried in her hand on the table near the entrance which was close to overflowing. Apparently Nott did have his purposes.

After she had left, Nott sat back down. "Still wondering what you're doing here?" He asked Draco with a ghost of a smirk.

"Not anymore," Draco said rubbing his aching neck. "Do I know her?"

Nott shook his head.

"Should I know her?" Draco asked.

Nott thought about it for a second. "Nah, she's nobody important." He decided.

Draco took Nott's word for that. Remembering where his train of thought had been before he'd been so rudely interrupted by the unimportant chit, he asked suddenly, "Do you exercise your eyebrows?"

"Do I _what_?" Nott said.

"Exercise your eyebrows. Do eyebrow exercises." Draco repeated gesturing to his own. "You know look in the mirror, raise each eyebrow a certain number of times, then wiggle the right one, then wiggle the left one, that kind of thing."

It was moments like these that truly made Nott worry about his fellow Slytherin's mental state of health. He could handle the Dragon's unconventional and ill-timed temper, no matter how bad things got. But eyebrow exercises? The plain randomness of the topic threw Nott for a loop. But Malfoy had been doing that a lot lately ever since his break-up with She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Under usual circumstances, Malfoy was not a random person in the least. And he most certainly would not be spending his time thinking about another guy's eyebrows.

"Man, she messed you up but good," Nott commented, shaking his head in pity for his fellow Slytherin.

Still stuck on the whole eyebrow issue, Draco was not ready for this change in conversation. "Huh?" he said.

"Daisy," That slipped out before Nott could stop it. Immediately he cringed and inwardly slapped himself for saying the She-Devil's name. Out loud. In front of Malfoy. There was an unspoken agreement between the Slytherins that her name should never be spoken since mentioning it was the one of the guaranteed things that would set Malfoy off at any given time. And as Nott had learned in the past, to his abject horror, where the Satan's She-Child was concerned, set off did not always mean send Malfoy into a rage. "Never mind. Forget I said anything."

"No, no why do that?" Draco said in what he thought to be a calm, rational voice. "I can tell this conversation is long overdue."

Oh great, Nott thought helplessly looking for a way out of the situation he'd just gotten himself in. This was not the time or the place for this. "How about we not?"

"You brought it up," Draco said in a not so nice voice. "The least you can do is be a man about it and see the conversation through."

That was hitting below the belt. "Be a man?" Nott laughed disbelievingly. "You're one to talk Malfoy. At least I don't lock myself in the bathroom so I can cry like a little girl."

"I had soap in my eyes!" Draco said defensively.

"Riiiight," Nott said sarcastically. Malfoy had pushed all his buttons, so he kept at it, despite knowing what it would probably lead to. "You want to have this conversation, fine. You want to hear the truth, it's up to you."

"Let's have it then," Draco said stubbornly, leaning back and folding his arms.

"You've changed. And not for the better." Although he was determined to give Malfoy a dose of reality, he had cooled down enough to realize that things would go more smoothly if he was tactful.

Draco waited a beat. "Is that it? That's the truth? That's what you were getting so worked up about?" he asked.

The heck with tact. It was all overrated anyway. "No, the truth is that ever since you broke up with Daisy you've become a totally different person. And I wish I was talking about your newly developed tendency to hex somebody into oblivion just for looking at you funny. Cos if I were then we wouldn't be having this conversation. But no. Somewhere in the past two weeks you made the transition from somebody you don't ever want to cross to somebody that can only be described as pathetic. And as a Slytherin, that is not acceptable."

Draco shrugged. To tell the truth, this conversation was starting to bore him. He'd only goaded Nott into it in the first place because the possibility of getting into a fight don't, with somebody that actually knew how to fight, had been more appealing then sitting around doing nothing. But now that the moment had passed, he just wanted this 'discussion' to be over so he could do something less boring. Like leave. And watch paint dry. Or count the cracks in the ceiling above his bed. Somewhere in the back of his mind he thought, _maybe Nott was right, maybe he was becoming pathetic._ It was unsettling how that thought didn't bother him so much.

"So?" Draco said, coming out of his musings. "What's that got to do with you?"

"Everything!" Nott replied. "Don't let this get to your head or anything, but you're like the Prince of Slytherins. Anything you do reflects on the rest of us. So when everybody eventually realizes that you've turned into a damn yuppie, we're all going to get the heat for it."

"I have not turned into a yuppie," Draco growled in indignation, for a split second feeling like his old self.

"You haven't?" Nott taunted. "Take a look at yourself. When's the last time you actually partied? Went out with the guys? All you do is lock yourself in your room, except for classes, mealtimes and Quidditch practice. Then you use that time to take out your anger on the rest of the world. And if having a hair-trigger temper wasn't enough," Nott continued ignoring Malfoy's token protests. "You've developed the attention span of niffler. And to top things off, your mood swings have been all over the friggin' place. All of the sudden, you're like Parkinson on permanent PMS."

"Alliteration," Draco said approvingly. At Nott's blank look, he added, "Sorry, I've been reading a lot of poetry lately."

"Are you _fucking_ kidding me?" Nott said when he'd finally recovered his ability to speak. "Since when do you read poetry? No, no, wait let me guess, it's one of the habits you picked up in hopes that Daisy will take you back."

Draco glared at him, daring him to say something. Anybody else would've gotten the hint but apparently Nott had a suicide wish. Or maybe he was just dumb.

"That's the stupidest thing I've heard in a long time, mate. The Sorting Hat put you in Slytherin for a reason, Malfoy. Where's your damn pride? So she dumped you. Get over it. Everybody gets dumped."

"I don't," Draco said sulkily.

"Well there's a first time for everything," Nott retorted. "So stop acting like a bloody Hufflepuff and get over it and get over her."

"I am over it!"

"Don't even try to lie to me, Malfoy," Nott scorned. "Slytherin, remember? I'll see right through it."

"I Am Over It," Draco repeated through clenched teeth. It was one thing for Nott to deem him too pathetic to be a Slytherin but to even suggest that he was still hung up on Her, that was too much. He was not under any circumstances still hung up on What's-her-face. See? He didn't even remember her name! He could not, would not still have feelings for somebody who had humiliated him and made a laughing stock out of him.

"Oh yeah?" Nott challenged. "Why haven't you gone out with anybody after her?"

"Where have you been for the past couple weeks? I have too gone out with somebody after Daisy-dammit!" Well, there went his whole I don't even remember her name rant. And just when he almost had himself convinced.

"Get real man. We're not talking about those girls you'd bring along with you whenever we forced you to get your head out of your arse and go for a drink. Everybody knows they were only for show. Even the chicks themselves. It's not like you're boinking them."

Draco was busy putting his brain into overdrive to think of a way to fend off this new line of attack when something Nott said got through to him. "Wait- what do you mean that everybody knows they were only for show?" he asked suspiciously.

And it was then Nott knew that he had him. "What?" he bluffed. "You really thought people we're buying it? The whole I'm the big bad snake and nothing will ever bring me down? See me shove my tongue down this girl's throat, doesn't that prove that I'm over being dumped?"

"You're saying it didn't work?" Draco asked anxiously. It was one thing from him to wallow in self-pity and a pile of Honeydukes best chocolate but it was another thing for the whole school to know and have his reputation as the 'Big Bad Snake" smeared. Draco shuddered at that horrid thought.

"You're saying that you actually thought it did?" Nott shot back.

"Yeah." Draco admitted. He was lucky that he was talking to Nott and nobody else. He had enough crapola on him so he didn't have to watch what he was saying.

"News flash, Malfoy. It didn't. And the result it, you are quickly losing favor with the ladies." That was a blatant lie. Malfoy could be declared a certified nutcase and he _still_ wouldn't lose favor with the ladies. But since Nott was positive that Malfoy hadn't been keeping up with the school gossip, he wouldn't know that.

"I am not!" Draco gasped.

"Yes you are. When's the last time a girl threw herself at you?" Nott said counting on the fact that Malfoy never paid attention to these sort of things.

"Just five minutes ago!" Draco said triumphantly, brightening considerably. For a second he'd been worried that what Nott was saying was true. What pure hippogryff dung.

"Malfoy, she was drunk," Nott stated. "I'm surprised that you couldn't smell it on her breath since she was practically attached to your face."

She had smelled funny, Draco remembered with grimace. His newfound happiness deflated slowly as he started to entertain the thought that maybe Nott was right. Dangerous thoughts, he warned himself almost immediately after that. There's no way Nott was right. Nott was never right. He was Nott, for Salazar's sake!

"My touch is still gold," Draco persisted.

Nott leaned back and did the eyebrow thing. It was starting to get on Draco's nerves. "Prove it," Nott said simply.

"Fine," Draco said bristling. He stood up to survey the crowd in front of him. Almost everybody was on the dance floor, dancing, more like grinding to a slow song. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted two girls standing next to the refreshments, eating. They weren't gorgeous, he mused, but they weren't ugly either. Just sort of normal looking. Pretty enough faces he supposed, but the one on the right had absolutely no bust to speak off and the one on the left was a little on the pudgy side. She would've been considered attractive if only she would lose some weight. What the hell, he thought with a long suffering sigh. It wasn't like he was going to sleep with them or anything. He was just merely proving a point to Nott. Then they could go about their merry little business and he could go about his.

"Oi! You two!" he shouted over the music.

Slowly they turned towards him and gave him a who me? look.

"Yes you," he said annoyed. "One of you. Or both of you. Doesn't really matter. Come over here."

It was apparent that they heard him but they made no move, didn't even take a single step.

"Today would be nice," Draco said sarcastically. "Don't worry the food's not going anywhere."

They gave him a disbelieving look. The pudgy one (he decided that for her own good and for the good of the male population of Hogwarts, he'd tell her about her little weight issue. Even offer to let her use his own personal gym. Which was a bit too generous for a Slytherin but he was grandly willing to overlook that) mouthed something that looked like 'fuck off' but it couldn't be. Not when he was planning to do her such a big favor. Then as if to say 'you better believe it buddy', the flat-chested one flipped him the bird. And with that they both walked away. It was Draco's turn to be dumbstruck.

"Well, sod it all to hell." He muttered, still not quite believing he'd been shot down. And by two ugly chicks (he'd changed he's mind about the normal looking) at that. Fuming, he sat back down. The reality of what had just happened was reinforced by Nott's roars of laughter.

"Touch is still gold, eh Malfoy?" he said before erupting into gales of laughter.

"Fuck off, you bloody wanker," Draco growled sinking into his seat. "There's obviously something wrong with those two. They're like defective or something."

"Defective or something? That's the best you can come up with?" Nott snorted. "Try the fact that you acted like a complete egotistical prig. Which you are but you don't need to let them know that. Remember, the Golden Rules? You acted like you were calling a damn dog instead of hitting on a girl. Where's the charm you're so famous for? And the fact that I have to tell you this is a testament in itself to how low you've sunk. I mean, you invented those guidelines and now you can't even follow them?"

"I can too." Draco said petulantly. "I just didn't feel like they were worth it."

"Another Golden Rule. Doesn't matter if the girl isn't worth it, you want to get her, you treat her like she's the Queen of the Universe. Simple enough?" Nott said.

"Course it is. I invented the Golden Rules, didn't I?" Draco scowled. But the truth of the matter was it'd been so long since he'd even bothered to use them, he wasn't entirely sure how to go about them. Not that he'd ever admit that to Nott.

At that moment a hush fell over the room and all eyes riveted to the entrance of the Room of Requirement. Having a hunch what they were looking at, Nott also turned to the doorway. Standing in the door, looking so gorgeous that all of the girls in the room immediately felt inferior, were Blaise Zabini and Virginia Weasely. The only reason Nott knew that the stunning redhead next to Blaise was Virginia was because he knew that Blaise had been bringing her. However, the rest of the people didn't have the luxury of that little tidbit of knowledge and the room quickly started buzzing with speculations on who the mysterious beauty might be.

"What's going on?" Draco asked having caught the air of excitement in the room.

"Look towards the entrance." Nott said.

Draco curiously followed his gaze. His eyes landed on Blaise. She looked sexy as hell but then Blaise always looked like that so he didn't see a reason for everybody to go crazy over her. "Yeah so?"

That response troubled Nott but he put his plan into action anyway. "Well she's obviously going to be the star of the party and since you're so worried about your reputation with the ladies, why don't you try and snag her?"

Draco mulled over that. "I got to admit I see your point, Nott. But you're forgetting that Blaise and I have already gone down that route before back in our 4th year. And the memory of the whole awkward, first time, virgin thing is still fresh enough in both our minds to insure that there will be no more repeat performances. Ever."

What the -? Blaise, who said anything about Blaise? Nott looked from the girl in question then back to Malfoy then back to the doorway again. It was then that he noticed that from Malfoy's point of view Virginia was sort of hidden behind Blaise. He jerked Malfoy to where he was standing. "Not Blaise, you dolt. The chit that's standing next to her."

Draco turned from Blaise to the girl next to her and let out a low whistle.

"That good?" Nott asked, trying to keep a gleeful smile off his face.

"You have to ask?" Draco returned not taking his eye off the girl. Now he could understand the rush that had gone through the crowd. It wasn't her looks exactly, though she certainly was pretty enough. It could be the amount of skin she was flashing or those long sinful legs that were probably at the moment starring in a handful of teenage boys' fantasies but Draco wouldn't bet on it. Or it could've been the whole 'don't even try to touch me' air she had but Draco decided that it was probably a combination of all of the above. There was also the fact that nobody seemed to know who she was. Draco wracked his brain trying to figure out if he'd seen her before. Although he hardly ever bothered to remember most of the people he'd met he was sure he would've remembered her. Something about her told him that she was of the unforgettable sort.

Seeing the open interest on Draco's face- a look he had not seen for quite a while-, Nott resolved there and then that no matter what it took, Malfoy would have the girl before the night was over. If Blaise came through then he wouldn't have to worry about that but if she didn't- well, the possibility of spending the rest of the year and Quidditch Season with post-Daisy Malfoy insured the fact that he would do just about anything to get the old Malfoy back. "So she's shaggable?"

"Definitely shaggable." Draco responded without thinking. "C'mon, let's go say hi to Blaise."

"Say hi to Blaise?" Nott said wryly. "Is that all you want to do?"

Draco gave a roguish grin, momentarily surprised how automatically the action had come to him.

Nott grinned. "Ladies, I do believe that the Dragon is back in business."

888888888

_I'm going to kill Blaise,_ Ginny thought. _I'm going to kill her but first I'm going to torture her. Slowly. Painfully. _The thought gave her some reprieve from the snitches flying around in her stomach and the urge to throw up. With everybody in the room's eyes on her she wanted nothing more then to put on Harry's invisibility cloak and disappear. But Blaise, anticipating that reaction, had confiscated the cloak when they arrived in front of the Room of Requirement.

"Why the hell are they all staring at us- particularly me?" Ginny asked under her breath. At the same time, she tilted her head defiantly towards the crowd. She would _not_ let this room full of Slytherins and God knows what else intimidate her. Of course if she had her wand and was a bit more covered then there would've been no need to talk herself into not being intimidating. If she had her wand then she might've been able to do something about the covering issue but courtesy of one Blaise Zabini, her wand was nowhere to be found. So unless she draped a tablecloth over herself, there was no way of covering all the excess skin. Ginny added that to her mental list of reasons of why she was justified in killing Blaise Zabini. Surely no jury would find her guilty when they heard of the horrific things Blaise had done to her. In fact, they'd probably give her some sort of reward money in compensation of suffering so great an injury. And then she'd give some of the money away to charity, because she's a good, kind-hearted person completely unlike the late Ms. Zabini who was an evil, evil, girl. Then some news network will come across the fact that some young, beautiful British girl had just given away gobs of money and do an interview on her (The public is very fond of young, beautiful people who give away money you know). Soon all of the witchly magazines and talk shows will be warring to do an exclusive on her. Which she will generously grant, because although she has become rich and famous, she remembers what it feels like to be one of the little people. Naturally, the next step would be writing her own autobiography talking about the horrors of dealing with Slytherins like Blaise Zabini and how she survived. Of course it will be a smash hit the minute it gets published simply because it was written by _her _and she is the all the rave. Ginny grinned at the thought of how much good could come from killing Blaise Zabini. She made a note to do it as soon as possible.

"It comes with being the 'it' girl. Deal with it." Blaise said answering the question Ginny had asked eons ago. "And stop thinking about murdering me."

"I'm not thinking about murdering you." Ginny lied, startled out of her reverie. How in the world had Blaise known what she was thinking? Had she somehow acquired the eye in the past two minutes? Ginny studied Blaise keenly, seeing if she looked any different now that she had the eye. Nope. Still the same. Maybe she didn't have the eye. Fate would never be so cruel as to bestow a gift on one so undeserving. Just to be sure, she asked. "What makes you think that?"

"Lucky guess," Blaise answered. "Or it could be the crazy, homicidal look on your face and the fact you keep whispering 'kill Zabini' and then grinning."

"Well do you blame me?" Ginny retorted crossing her arms which did interesting things for her breasts she realized. She noticed some Slytherin fifth year blatantly staring at said breasts and immediately dropped her arms. "Besides it's the only thing keeping me from running out of this room screaming."

"Maybe, but everyone in this room is going to start thinking you're nuts, which you are but let's try to keep it a secret, shall we?"

"I'm not nuts," Ginny said vehemently. "_You_ are nuts for getting me involved in your shenanigans in the first place. Everybody in this room is nuts for voluntarily being here. And I am the only unnutty person."

"Shhh," Blaise hissed spotting Nott and Dragon heading there way. "Not so loud, Draco's coming."

"And why should I care?" She was too caught up in the heat of the moment to realize the true weight of this statement.

"Because you're the only reason he's headed this way." Blaise replied.

"No, it's not." Ginny said but her stomach took a plunge as she too spotted the boys. "He's probably just leaving and we're in his way. Or he's coming to say hi to you. Either way I have nothing to do with it."

"You tell yourself that," Blaise smirked.

"Ugh," Ginny said, tearing her gaze from her impending doom (otherwise known as Draco Malfoy) so she could make a disgusted face at Blaise. "I could practically hear that smirk. What is it with you Slytherins and smirking? Besides the alliteration."

"What's that about alliteration?" Came a lazy, amused drawl.

From too many years of being on guard around Malfoy, Ginny instinctively stiffened. Then chiding herself for reacting so stupidly, she forced herself to relax and turn to face him. And quickly realized that was not the most brilliant of moves. He was closer to her then she'd expected him to be. A lot closer. Like crowding her personal space close. Like there was only a hairbreadth of space between them (That was a bit of an exaggeration, but under such circumstances Ginny felt as if she had the right to exaggerate.) Like if she looked up she could probably count his nose hairs close. Not that she wanted to count his nose hairs. Great Merlin, the mere thought was nauseating. In fact the mere phrase "Malfoy's nose hairs" was nauseating and she was going to stop thinking about it immediately. Immediately, she said! But unfortunately the image of Malfoy's nose hairs was imbedded in her brain and it was refusing to budge. She rolled her eyes up as far as they could go, thinking that if she was somehow able to roll them inwards she'd be able to see inside her mind and simply pluck the thought out. After a couple of seconds of trying, Ginny concluded that the only thing that action would get her was a migraine. Oh well. It was just another one for the list of grievances against Blaise.

Speak of the devil; Ginny stumbled as Blaise elbowed her in the side, hard.

Rubbing her side, Ginny glared at Blaise. "And what, pray tell, was that for, Zabini?"

In response, Blaise motioned to Draco who was giving her a strange look. Either that or he was constipated. Dimly she wondered how it was possible that someone with obvious signs of constipation could manage to look so good. Abruptly she realized where her thoughts had been and took a step back in horror. _OMG, I did not just go there._

"Go where?" Malfoy's companion spoke up. Ginny recognized him as Nott, a Slytherin seventh year and too late realized that she must have spoken her last thought out loud.

"Um, nowhere?"

She was saved from having to explain further by another elbow jab from Blaise. Ignoring the fact that Blaise had just done her a favor (She'd just about reached her limit of patience where Blaise was concerned), she snarled, "What the fuck is wrong with you, you mentally deranged pathetic excuse for a human being?"

"Funny, I was just going to ask you that question," Blaise shot back. Apparently she'd had it with Ginny too. "And the only mentally deranged person I see in this room is you."

"Then it's about time you got a mirror, don't you think?" Ginny snapped. Mentally she patted herself on the back for coming up with such a good come back.

"Okay, okay. Break it up you two," Nott ordered. "You guys are attracting way too much attention."

"Stay out of it, Nott." Blaise warned, never taking her eyes off Ginny.

"Not on your life, Zabini." Nott said dead serious. "You two fight now, you'll ruin everything. And you'll regret it later." Blaise tore her eyes from Ginny to look at Nott. What was unspoken but clearly heard was _I'll make sure of it._

For a long moment Blaise stared at Nott. Then, slowly, she nodded.

"We'll continue this later," she informed Ginny.

"What's wrong with now? You afraid you won't be able to take me?"

"Don't push me," Blaise said. "And don't forget why we're here in the first place."

"Do I _look_ like I'm about to forget anytime soon?" Ginny retorted. But for a moment she had.

Ignoring Ginny's poisonous tone, Blaise smiled and said in a sugar sweet voice (Ginny wasn't sure who's benefit it was for; Draco or the onlookers), "Look, why don't we start over? Dragon, Nott let's pretend you guys just came over."

So that how it was going to be? Well, fine with her. "What a good idea, Blaise." Ginny said, in a just as syrupy voice. "Boys?"

As Blaise had expected, that broke the crowd up. They walked away looking disappointed that they weren't going to witness a fight. Nott looked merely amused while Draco looked as if his constipation was growing worse. Poor thing, Ginny mused sympathetically. Then she remembered that this was Malfoy. He deserved to be constipated! It was like, penance for past sins. And she was sure he had those in spades. Speaking of penance, she banged her palm of her hand against her head for thinking that wayward thought. She considered smacking Blaise, cos once again it was her fault that the thought had even occurred to her but seeing as Blaise had a wand and Ginny didn't, she decided it wouldn't be wise.

"So, I didn't get the chance to say this before but Happy Birthday, Dragon," Blaise said, giving him an obligatory kiss.

Ginny immediately sheltered her innocent eyes from the much exchanging of saliva between the two Slytherins (okay so it didn't exactly happen that way but right of exaggeration, remember?).

"Thanks," Draco said with grin. "Where's my present?"

"It's coming," Blaise said smiling (this time a real smile) back.

Draco frowned. "I'm getting sick of hearing that," he said.

"Meaning?" Blaise asked.

"That's exactly what Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott said," Draco complained. "Hey wait a minute- you guys aren't planning to get me one present from all of you, are you?"

Nott and Blaise exchanged an almost imperceptible look but Draco caught it.

"You are, aren't you?" Draco accused. "Well, it sure as hell better be a good present if all of you are in on it."

"It will be, Malfoy." Nott said mildly.

At that, Ginny pulled Blaise aside. "Excuse us." She told the boys.

"What now, Weasely?"

"He just called him Malfoy!" she hissed.

"Oh for Merlin's-" Blaise exploded. "That is what you pulled me aside to tell me!"

"Uh yeah," Ginny said, not feeling a bit remorseful.

"Well?"

"So, why can't I call Malfoy, Malfoy?" Ginny wanted to know.

"I thought I made it clear enough, Weasel. It's Draco or Dragon. You are not under any circumstances to call him Malfoy." Blaise said.

"But why not?" Ginny persisted. "Nott does."

Blaise rubbed her temples. "Now is not the time to discuss the dos and don'ts of Slytherin conduct." She groaned. "Suffice to say, when Nott or any other male Slytherin calls Draco Malfoy it's a sign of respect to him and his family. When you or any other non-Slytherin except for a few special cases call him Malfoy, it's automatically considered a sign of disregard or worse. And since you have agreed to be nice to him, you will not call him Malfoy. Do I make myself clear?"

"Like mineral water." Ginny replied.

"What was that all about?" Nott asked when the girls had finished their little powwow.

"Nothing," Blaise said breezily. Turning to Ginny, she said, "Didn't you have something you wanted to tell Draco?"

"Did I?" Ginny asked, pretending to have forgotten which she couldn't have because Blaise had drilled it into her brain.

Blaise glared at her.

"Oh right, I did." Ginny said, turning to the person in question. She took a couple of deep breaths to fortify herself and to get herself ready to say it. When a couple of deep breaths didn't do the trick, she took a couple more. Still wasn't working. Noticing the looks she was receiving she held up a finger, "Give me a minute,"

Ginny was sure she heard Blaise growl. It was quite an unnerving sound.

"Okay, I'm ready," Ginny said, smiling falsely hoping against hope that she was truly ready. She opened her mouth and-

Nothing came out.

Determined to see this through no matter how much it killed her, she cleared her throat and tried again. This time she squeaked.

It was Blaise's turn to haul Ginny off.

"What the hell are you playing at, Weasely?" she asked furiously.

"Nothing," Ginny said, for once being honest. "I swear it. It's just that every time I try to say the words, the thought of what I'm actually going to do hits me and the words kind of get stuck in my throat."

"Why me?" Blaise asked rolling her eyes heavenward. "You make it sound like you're going to bloody propose to the boy."

"Eeew," Ginny said wrinkling her nose.

"It's three words, Weasely. I'm sure you can say them without choking."

"Well that's good cos me, I'm not so sure at all." Ginny confessed.

"You give Gryffindors a bad name, you know that?" Blaise said.

"I do not," Ginny disagreed, affronted.

"Then where's all that courage you guys are famed for?"

"Off vacationing in Aruba with my sanity?" Ginny suggested.

"More like mine for getting into this mess in the first place," Blaise muttered. "Just get it over with Weasely. Think about it this way, the sooner you say the words the sooner you're out of here."

Well, when you put it that way- Ginny stalked back to where Nott and Malfoy were waiting with Blaise hot on her heels.

"Sorry, girl talk," Blaise apologized. "Now where were we?"

"I think you were about squeak- sorry, say something?" Nott said smirking at Ginny.

Ginny gave him her most hated look. After Malfoy, Nott was her second least favorite of the Slytherins.

For what she promised herself was the last time, Ginny took a deep breath (she was quickly figuring out that deep breaths were overrated) and turned towards Draco. She could do this, she told herself, she had practiced what? A hundred times? Okay not that much but she'd repeated the words at least ten times. And every time she'd done it perfectly. Well, not perfectly but she'd managed to get the words out without giving herself a hernia which was a miracle in itself.

"Herni-" Ginny winced, that's what she got for thinking about hernias. "I mean, Hap-happy ba-ba I mean bi-birth- birth- birthday," She felt a surge of triumph now that she'd gotten two words out. Only one word, unfortunately that one was the hardest. "Dr-Ma-Dr-Ma." Ginny threw Blaise a helpless look.

"Of all the-" Blaise said, thoroughly put out. "Just give it up. What she's trying to say Dragon is Happy Birthday."

"Yeah, I kind of figured that out," Draco replied. "But who's Dharma?"

"l think that might be you." Nott stage whispered.

Just then the DJ started to play a slow song.

"Ooh, I love this song," Ginny squealed excitedly and was immediately on the receiving end of three _short attention span, anyone?_ looks.

Then Blaise was hit with a moment of inspiration. Catching Nott's eye she mimicked dancing with her hands and pointed to Dragon and Ginny. Being one of the brighter Slytherins though many people tended to overlook that fact, he immediately understood what she wanted.

"Really? what a coincidence, so does Malfoy." Nott said.

"No, I d-Ow!" Draco glared at Nott as he hopped around on one foot, the one Nott hadn't stomped on.

"Now do you remember how much you like this song?" Nott said pleasantly.

"How could I have ever forgotten?" Draco said, through clenched teeth and much hopping.

"Here's a thought," Blaise said, pretending it had just occurred to her. She turned to Ginny "You like this song," then she turned to Draco. "And you like this song. And this song is meant to be danced to. So why don't you two dance to it?"

"With him?" Ginny asked incredulously just as Draco said, in an equally incredulous tone, "With her?"

They both turned to look at each other somewhat surprised.

Both feeling as they needed to clarify, they said in unison. "Together?"

Insert another exchange of looks.

_Okay I know why I don't want to dance with him, but what reason could he possibly have for not wanting to dance with me? Is he not the fool who wanted me here in the first place?_

_Okay I know why I don't want to dance with her, but why the H- E- double broomstick does she not want to dance with me? I'm friggin' Draco Malfoy!_

"Together?" Blaise laughed, a strange sounding brittle laugh. "What makes you think that? I meant by yourselves in complete separate corners of the room."

Having spent enough time with Blaise in the past couple of hours to start anticipating her moods, Ginny took a cautious step back. Draco and Nott however were not aware of Blaise's new fragile state of mind so they stayed put, Draco with a relieved look and Nott a confused one.

"OF COURSE I MEANT TOGETHER! WHAT ARE YOU, DAFT?"

Ginny watched amusedly as the two Slytherins jumped practically a foot.

"WELL WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?"

Composed, Blaise was a force to be reckoned with. Uncomposed, her hair starting to come loose, spittle forming at the corners of her mouth, and yelling at the top of her lungs, she was downright terrifying. Draco snapped to attention and hurried to do as she ordered.

Ginny, although mildly concerned about the new low Blaise seemed to have reached, was not so willing.

"Give us a minute," she told the boys. They nodded but stayed rooted to their spots eyeing Blaise warily. Deciding to use Blaise's technique, she said loudly (yelled was more like it) "SHOO!"

She grinned when they immediately started to move. She turned to Blaise who was still breathing heavily.

"Take deep breaths," Ginny said kindly. "There you go, that's the way."

Summoning a bottle of water from the refreshment table, Blaise took a long swallow and pulled herself together.

"Why," She paused for effect. "Are you not dancing with Draco?"

"What, you say jump, I jump? Sorry Zabini, the whole eye bulging banshee, screeching thing might've worked on Malfoy but having done my fair share of eye bulging, banshee screeching it has zero effect on me." Ginny said cheerfully. It was amazing how watching Blaise lose it could make her feel so, so- well, not like losing it.

Blaise barely resisted the urge to go back to her cationic state, barely. It would've made things so much easier. When she killed Weasely she could just plead temporary insanity and with the way she'd just acted, nobody would dare disagree with that.

"Listen to me, Weasely." Blaise began quietly and ominously. "I've got waaaay too much riding on this to let you, of all people, ruin it. Do you have any idea how long it's taken me to work this out so everybody's happy? Do you? DO YOU? Years, Weasel, years. And now the only thing between me and Oliver is you and if you THINK, for a nanosecond, that I'll just sidestep and let you trod all over my carefully laid plans, think again. You do NOT have a say in this. If I say, jump, you WILL jump. And if I say dance with Dragon, you WILL dance with Dragon. There is no other option."

Now a person of average intelligence would've understood from Blaise's creepy undertone, the hushed way she was speaking and the edges of hysteria tingeing her voice that the wise decision would be to just nod and back away slowly, very slowly. In circumstances such as these, one must seriously doubt Ginny Weasely's level of intelligence.

"Yes there is." Ginny fought. "I'm not a house elf, Zabini. I can decide not to dance to your tune and what a cowinky dink? I can decide not to dance with Malfoy. "

Blaise really wanted to have another eye bulging, banshee screeching moment, like an addict wants their next fix. That bad. This is what the current state of her life and absolutely no sleep for the past forty-eight hours did to her. It also helped that with every passing second she could practically feel her chances of getting Oliver to take her back slipping away, since in order for that to happen she'd have to meet up with him and according to his publicist, he was supposed to be leaving for Cambodia anywhere from the next couple of minutes to the next couple of hours. But she would not give up, not now, not when she was so close. Time for her back up card.

"You will dance with Dragon if want me to consider this debt repaid in full,"

"What are you, joking?" Ginny said disbelievingly. "You've seriously overplayed the debt card, Zabini. I've more than repaid it in full."

"I was so hoping you would say that," Blaise said smiling maliciously. "Cos it gives me the chance to use my other card."

Ginny didn't think she liked the sound of that.

"You said something back when we were getting ready for the part that struck me as very interesting." Blaise said slowly, still smiling. "Something about if your mom ever heard of you dressing like this, she'd send you to the nearest convent. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but that leads one to believe that you don't want your mother hearing of you, much less seeing you wearing nothing more than scrap of material and a pair of heels. She might get all sorts of wrong ideas, with the right sort of prompting of course. Imagine her surprise when she receives a letter from a well-wisher about her daughter's latest activities complete with pictures of her only daughter and youngest child, looking like a Knockturn Alley hooker-"

"I do not look like a Knockturn Alley hooker!"

"I'm sure you're mother would disagree." Blaise said evenly.

"You're bluffing," Ginny declared, though she felt queasy at the slight thought of the type and severity of the consequences bound to happen if Blaise ever decided to test her hypothesis. "I bet you don't even have any pictures."

"Do I look like the type of person to make an empty bluff? Especially when I have so much riding on it?" Blaise answered, now eerily calm and reasonable.

No, no she didn't, Ginny was forced to admit. "Where are they then?" She asked despite her inner turmoil.

"They're in the process of being developed." Blaise answered. "I should have them in about an hour or so. Now, you have two choices you can A) leave, go back to your dormitory, patiently wait for the pictures to get to your mom, which thanks to express owl won't take long, and then wait for her to come storming into Hogwarts, because we both know that's what she'd do and immediately no matter what time of night it was. I have no idea what she'll do after that but I'm sure you can come up with some pretty good theories."

That she could and the thought alone was enough to make Ginny feel miserable.

"Or," Blaise continued, seeing she had Ginny's undivided attention. "B) you can dance with Dragon which is not the brain surgery you're making it to be. It'll take a couple of minutes at the most, and despite your professed hate for all things Draco Malfoy, I'm sure you can take a couple of minutes of contact with him. Zone him out, pretend he's somebody else, go to your safe place, I don't care. Just dance with him."

"You don't have any proof that you have the pictures." Ginny argued feebly.

"And you don't have any proof that I don't," Blaise replied. "The real question is are you willing to risk it?"

No she was not, Ginny admitted. Having to choose between dancing with Malfoy or facing her mother's wrath was like being forced to choose between running through the Great Hall naked or watching Dumbledore run through the Great Hall naked. Not that that would ever happen but it was analogous since both thoughts were equally unappealing. But on the greater scale of things i.e. Life, Ginny reasoned that having her mother think that she was some kind of tart for eternity (Molly Weasely was known for having a long memory) was somewhat worse than spending three, four minutes in Malfoy's arms. The reason for this being that she could zone him out like, Blaise had suggested, and later do the whole selective memory thing and forget that it ever happened (this is once she recovers from the state of shock she will surely go into the minute any part of his anatomy touches any part of hers, and she doesn't mean anatomy THAT way so stop thinking those dirty thoughts, you nasty pervs). But where her mother was considered, no amount of selective memory would ever let her live down her slightly promiscuous behavior, not that she ever participated in any promiscuous behavior but her mom wouldn't see it that way and before you could even spell promiscuous, she'd have everybody, Ginny included, convinced of that.

Ginny gave a resigned sigh, signaling that she had given to Blaise's demands. She opened her mouth to say something but Blaise interrupted.

"Let me guess, you hate me, you loathe me. I'm despicable, I'm evil, I'm a bitch. Save your breath."

"What, you think those are the only insults I have? Where you're concerned Zabini every insult known to wizard applies and then some." Ginny said, unwilling to let her have the last word.

"Well one day, we'll have to sit down so you can inform me of them but not right now," Blaise replied. "Right now, you'll dance with Dragon. And I'll get the hell out of here."

"That's supposed to my line," Ginny muttered.

"Tough," Was Blaise's only response. Catching Nott's eye, she waved him and Draco over.

"Feeling better?" Nott inquired.

"Much," Blaise said.

"That's good to hear." Draco said, relieved. "For a second you had me worried when you went all crazy."

"Draco, love," Blaise said sweetly. "If you don't want me to go all crazy again you'll file what just happened into our 'Don't Mention' folder. You know, right between the 4th year incident and all the times you lost a Quidditch match to Potter."

"Gotcha," Draco said hastily.

"Now you two, dance," she all but ordered. Once again Draco jumped to do as she said but this time Ginny unenthusiastically followed his lead. "Nott, you come with me."

Nott said something to Draco in low voice before heading out with Blaise leaving Ginny and Draco cagily watching each other. When Ginny made no attempt to move from her spot Draco swallowed past all his uncertainties, forced a charming smile on his face, held out his hand and said gallantly, "Shall we?"

"Must we?" Ginny replied. Apparently Malfoy didn't hear her because he took a step towards her.

Impulsively, she took a step back.

Confused nevertheless determined, he took another step towards her.

And Ginny took another step back.

Swearing that this would be the last time, he once more stepped forward.

Ginny had taken half a step backward when she realized the plain stupidity of her actions. She was going to have to dance with him anyway, so playing cat and mouse was pretty pointless and it made her look like a coward. Which she was not, she was a Gryffindorian remember? She could handle anything, including dancing with Malfoy. All she had to do was think happy thoughts and she'd probably come out unscathed.

With this new ideology firmly in mind, Ginny took a step towards Malfoy.

Who promptly took a step back.

"Okay we are not going to do that again," Ginny said.

Somewhat abashed to be caught backing away from a girl, he immediately went on the offensive. "You started it," he accused.

From years of bantering with Malfoy, Ginny automatically disagreed. "No I didn't."

"Yes you did. You took the first step back, so you started it," Malfoy said.

"No I didn't." Ginny argued. "Technically it started when you took the first step towards me so I took a step back therefore making you the initiator."

Draco stared at her. "Does that actually make sense to you?" he asked.

Somebody cleared their throat behind them. Both expecting Blaise, they slowly turned around.

Instead they were faced with the assistant DJ whose job it was to gather requests from the party goers.

"You the birthday boy?" At Malfoy's nod, he continued, "Got a message for you," and handed him a sealed envelope before walking away.

The minute Draco touched the envelope it began to sizzle and give off smoke. Within a few seconds it exploded and they heard Blaise's magnified voice.

"WHY THE HELL ARE YOU TWO NOT DANCING?"

Thankfully Blaise had had the common sense to charm it so only Draco and Ginny where able to hear it.

"I thought she was supposed to be leaving." Draco muttered, annoyed.

"Apparently not. She's probably watching us from somewhere." Ginny replied, scanning the room for any sign of Blaise.

At that moment the song that Ginny had eagerly professed her love for and was the source of her current aggravation started up again. It had ended some minutes ago, but it was now back and with a vengeance.

"This song is dedicated to our guest of honor, the Dragon himself, and his lady of the evening. Enjoy." The DJ announced in a magnified voice so everybody heard it to their combined horror. The lights immediately dimmed and the crowd slowly parted so they could make their way towards the center of the dance floor.

"This has Zabini written all over it." Ginny said darkly.

"Was there ever any doubt?" Draco replied wryly. Unlike his 'lady of the evening', Draco was quickly getting over his horror and starting to appreciate all the attention being sent their way. Never let it be said that he was one to waste an opportunity to promote himself. Putting an arm around her waist, he half dragged, half pulled her to the center of the dance floor dimly aware that she'd made a sort of whimpering protesting sound. Once there, he used his other arm to pull her flush against him and being of the male gender, he took a moment to appreciate the way they fit. Then he awkwardly tried to drape her arms around his neck but they kept slipping off.

"A little help would be nice," he said against her hair.

"Unicorns," Ginny whispered. "Pretty, pretty unicorns. All white and sparkly."

"I beg pardon?" Draco said sure that he'd heard wrong.

"I like unicorns," Ginny sighed dreamily. "Unicorns make me happy. Happy, happy, happy."

Well on the bright side, there wasn't anything wrong with his hearing. On the not so bright side, there was definitely something wrong with the babbling girl in front of him.

888888888

**A/N: **Whoops, looks like Ginny's going over the deep end. Again. This isn't where I had originally planned to end (I had like three more scenes I wanted to do) but then I realized that I'd written almost fifteen pages and that there was no way I'd get to where I wanted to be before the night was over. And considering that's it's been a month since I updated I decided to leave off here. The way I see it, it's better that I give you guys sumin' instead of nuthin' at all. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, enjoyed getting to know Dragon. Don't worry if he wasn't as arrogant and as presumptuous as you, thanks to my background info on him, expected him to be. He's still in his post-Daisy stage, remember? (even though Nott thinks he's over it). I'm predicting that with a little 'help' from Ginny (whom if you haven't noticed by now he doesn't recognize i.e. he has no idea that the girl he's dancing with and planning on getting with is the one and only V. Weasely) and Lord knows what 'help' means where she's concerned, he's going to going to go back to normal and fast. Hence, chapter seven's title, _How The Dragon Got His Groove Back. _I'd tell you be on the lookout for it but the thing is I'm working on scholarships for college and I have two due by the end of this month so chapter seven might not be up for another three weeks. Bare with me peeps, after that I'm home free and I'll be updating a whole lot more. As always, review and tell me what you think!

Crazy is as crazy does,

-TDL


	7. Curiosity killed the Centuar

**A/N: **If you are reading this and are under the impression that this is an honest to God update and are getting ready to jump out of your seat and do a happy dance, you are wrong and I apologize.

It is in fact, an experiment of sorts.

It's been two years and a half since I've updated this story -all of my stories to be exact; things happened and my writing had to be put on the backburner. However, I've always vowed to finish my fics no matter how long it took me. I stumbled across this one earlier today and reading it made me remember how much I loved LOVED writing it. I've also recently started taking creative writing classes at college and am curious to see if I can still do fanfiction justice. I know much has happened since I started this fic (it's been nearly five FRIGGIN years!) and most of my original readers have probably moved on to bigger and better things but I have this itch that's pushing me to update this fic.

So my question for you is this: If I update this fic, would you be willing to read it? In other words, are there any people out there that would still be interested in the Ginny/Draco ship? We would of course have to ignore everything that's happened in the last two books.

Even if your answer is an emphatic NO, please let me know. This is a very big deal to me and I really would like to know what other people think!

Love you all like a fat kid loves cake,

-TDL


End file.
